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Real estate groups had a good run on Beacon Hill over the last two years.

Rent control remained dead. The proposal to allow local-option transfer taxes – sought by communities who want to tax big-money property sales as a way to boost affordable housing – was left on the cutting room floor of Gov. Maura Healey’s housing bond bill. And Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s proposal to temporarily shift the property tax burden onto commercial owners died in the Senate.

But some are now incensed over a state budget rider that includes an attempt to end charging tenants a brokers fee to rent an apartment. Landlords won’t be able to require tenants to pay people – the brokers – who set up the rental agreements. Instead, the fee is to be charged to whoever hires the broker.

The move, cheered by longtime tenant advocates, upends a practice that can lead to a renter writing a check for $11,000 or more up front, including first and last month rents, as well as a security deposit.

The Small Property Owners Association (SPOA) on Wednesday pulled together a mix of landlords, brokers and real estate agents outside the State House to protest the measure, which goes into effect Aug. 1, one month away from the busiest move-in date of the year. They are lobbying to delay the measure – if not repeal it outright – and they argue the renter will still end up paying through higher rents. Confusion over wording in the law, and how it’s enforced, will likely lead to lawsuits, they add.

Adam Kotkin, owner and broker of Brookline-based Red Tree Real Estate, one of the state’s top rental firms, says the measure throws the industry into “turmoil” as it struggles to interpret the new law.

“Nobody here knows how to abide by the law. Unless the landlord just pays the fee, and then we don’t have to deal with that part, then that’s easy,” he said. “But some landlords still are not wanting to pay the fee up until today. So what do we do with those people?”

Before she signed the state budget, Healey touted her decision to okay the brokers fees provision, which she has described as a “ban,” in a press release and on social media.

But the proposal was actually prioritized by the Senate, which has been friendly to real estate interests in recent years. Senate President Karen Spilka essentially handed veto power to business groups when Wu was negotiating her property tax shift proposal with them, and the proposal died after the groups pulled out of a deal.

Asked about the SPOA protest outside on Wednesday, Spilka stood by the brokers fee measure.

“Shifting brokers fees away from renters removes an enormous up-front cost barrier for renters who are already paying thousands of dollars to move,” she said in a statement. “This law was a win for Massachusetts and a no-brainer in the fight to make housing more affordable.”

This story was originally published in the Thursday, July 24, 2025 edition of the MASSterlist email newsletter and is republished here with permission.