New York City Council Votes to End Broker Fees Squeezing Renters

Germany effectively banned broker fees in 2015 with the "Bestellerprinzip": the person who hired the agent pays for the agent. In most cases, this means the landlord. The fee is also capped to 2x the cold rent (before utilities).

You also can't charge an agent fee for merely giving someone access to a database, and you can't be both the agent and the landlord, nor the agent and the previous tenant.

Unfortunately, the difficult housing market ended up creating all sorts of other bribes. The most common is the previous tenant selling their furniture for an exhorbitant fee, or straight up requesting a bribe. These are obviously illegal, and you would be entitled to keep the apartment even after getting your money back in court. However rights are of little importance if you don't have the time/energy/means to enforce them. It's also a bad way to start a relationship with a landlord.

German law is firmly on the side of tenants, but sometimes the greed is just too strong, and there is an endless supply of applicants who are willing to compromise.

More info here: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/housing-scams#scams-by-lan...

> but sometimes the greed is just too strong, and there is an endless supply of applicants who are willing to compromise.

This is why increasing the supply is so important too. Lawmakers like to overestimate the impact of their laws.

But banning fees is so much easier than building house/going against your paymasters.

We had a similar fee ban in England too. Has it moved the needle on the overall rental situation? I don't believe so