{"id":356180,"date":"2025-11-05T00:14:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T00:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/356180\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T00:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T00:14:12","slug":"san-diego-county-considers-outlawing-junk-fees-for-renters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/356180\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego County considers outlawing &#8216;junk fees&#8217; for renters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\tWhy this matters<\/p>\n<p>San Diego officials are grappling with an ongoing affordability and housing crisis.<\/p>\n<p>San Diego County officials will consider cracking down on what they say are hidden and excessive fees tacked onto renters every month, including fees for pest control, trash collection and pets.<\/p>\n<p>The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 3-2 to begin drafting a new law that aims to protect renters from \u201cprice gouging and fee exploitation.\u201d It\u2019s similar to the <a href=\"https:\/\/inewsource.org\/2025\/10\/30\/san-diego-rent-tenant-protection-junk-fee-ordinance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposal introduced<\/a> by a San Diego City Council committee last week. Both proposals \u2014 from the city and county \u2014 will return to public meetings at a later date.<\/p>\n<p>County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre, who introduced the proposal with Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, said surprise fees for things like key fobs, trash pickup and online payment portals are not only costly and confusing, but they can also be exploitative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese hidden costs make budgeting nearly impossible, create barriers that keep people from securing stable housing and erode trust between tenants and landlords,\u201d Aguirre said.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed ordinance aims to set <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1SZUnu-NBfBENuiTp1CpHqart6YF8KZwc\/view\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">clear rules<\/a> on fees that can be applied to renters. That means:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Capping monthly fees at 5% of the total rent.<\/li>\n<li>Banning fees for basic services that make the home livable, including pest control and trash collection.<\/li>\n<li>Eliminating monthly fees to own a pet \u2014 not including a pet security deposit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The proposal comes in the midst of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis in San Diego. The average rent in the county has increased 52% since 2018, and over 80% of extremely low-income households pay more than half of their income on housing, according to staff reports. Nearly every month, more people fall into homelessness for the first time than those who move off the streets and into housing.<\/p>\n<p>An inewsource investigation into <a href=\"https:\/\/inewsource.org\/illegal-rent-increases\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">illegal rent increases<\/a> uncovered the frequency of add-on fees applied to tenants, also known as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/inewsource.org\/2023\/11\/30\/san-diego-rent-increases-tenant-protection-red-flags\/#junkfees\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">junk fees<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, state lawmakers set a cap on rent increases \u2014 5% plus inflation, or 10%, <a href=\"https:\/\/inewsource.org\/2025\/07\/28\/san-diego-county-rent-increase-cap-adjustment-inflation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">whichever is lower<\/a> \u2014 and some property owners started finding creative ways to get around the cap by imposing add-on fees. This includes new fees for water, sewer, trash, or parking \u2014 even a sudden requirement to obtain renters insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of residents, property owners and industry experts spoke during Tuesday\u2019s board meeting expressing support and opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Supervisor Jim Desmond, who voted no on the proposal, raised concerns about property owners\u2019 ability to recover the cost of providing housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile I believe this item is well intentioned, I think it\u2019ll do the opposite,\u201d Desmond said, adding that he was once a \u201cmom and pop landlord\u201d who rented a couple of single-family homes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf this fell in my lap and I had to decipher all of this, I would just raise the rent three-hundred, four-hundred bucks and say, alright I\u2019m going to cover whatever fees I might have later,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Supervisor Joel Anderson, who also voted no, said he\u2019s in the process of building an accessory dwelling unit. He said if he were to rent it out, he\u2019d have to \u201cjack (up) the rent, because it\u2019s my retirement, I can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And rental housing providers will likely have to \u201cinvest in another state to get their passive income,\u201d Anderson added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anybody on this board that thinks that rents should go up and people should be taken advantage of,\u201d he added, \u201cbut on the same token, it\u2019s not hard to figure out that people aren\u2019t going to give away property for free.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tType of Content<\/p>\n<p>News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why this matters San Diego officials are grappling with an ongoing affordability and housing crisis. San Diego County&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":356181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,16215,3549,12051,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-356180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-housing-and-development","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-county-board-of-supervisors","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115494208483138694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}