Dear Clients,

A new Massachusetts regulation—940 CMR 38.00 (the “Junk Fee” rule)—goes into effect on September 2, 2025, and it brings important new requirements for how rental listings must be advertised to the public.

To help you prepare, we’re outlining what the law requires, what steps you can take now, and what new tools YouGotListings will release on September 1 to support your compliance efforts.

What Does the New Law Require?

When publicly advertising a rental dwelling unit in Massachusetts:

1. Mandatory Monthly Fees Must Be Included in the Advertised Rent

• If a listing includes required monthly charges (e.g., a mandatory $50 technology fee), the advertised rent must reflect the true monthly cost, inclusive of those fees.

2. Non-Mandatory Fees Must Be Clearly Disclosed Separately

This includes:

• One-Time Move-In Costs
  Only the following fees may be charged at lease signing:

  • First Month’s Rent

  • Last Month’s Rent

  • Security Deposit (up to one month’s rent)

  • Actual cost of changing the lock and key

• Optional Monthly Fees
  Examples include pet rent, parking, storage, laundry, or amenity subscriptions. These must be clearly marked as optional and excluded from the advertised rent total.

Listings that fail to meet these requirements may be considered deceptive under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act (Chapter 93A) and could expose landlords, brokers, or platforms to enforcement risk.

What You Can Do Now

While our current system is not yet fully designed for Junk Fee compliance, you can begin using existing tools to lay the groundwork:

• Turn Off Syndication

  • On the Marketing & Syndication page.  Admin/mangers, click on the circular Profile icon on the upper right to access.

  • In the Marketing section of any Landlord Details or Listing Details page

  • Or use the Bulk Update button on the upper right of the Rentals tab to turn off syndication in bulk

• Start Entering Move-In Cost Info

  • Use the Move-In Cost section on each listing’s details page

  • Or apply updates in bulk using the Bulk Update tool on the Rentals tab

These tools can help you start organizing the data you'll need once the regulation is in effect.

Coming September 1

We will release key updates that will support full compliance:

• Move-In Cost fields at the Landlord level to apply default values across all listings

• A new Monthly Fees section on both Listing and Landlord details pages

• Automated inclusion of Move-In Costs and Optional Monthly Fees in:

  • All listing syndications

  • Your YGL-powered websites and widgets

  • API feeds