Investigation of Greystar junk fees in The Guardian features PESP analysis
July 1, 2026
A recent investigation into private equity landlord Greystar’s controversial junk fees featured analysis by PESP.
Private equity landlords are known for layering on junk fees to leases, leaving tenants with additional monthly fees in the hundreds of dollars. The Federal Trade Commission and the State of Colorado sued Greystar in January 2025 for allegedly “deceptively advertising low monthly rents only to later saddle tenants with hundreds of dollars of hidden junk fees.” According to the complaint, tenants often did not discover the fees until after they signed a lease or moved in. The complaint alleges that these hidden fees have cost Greystar tenants hundreds of millions of dollars.
The investigation by Tracie McMillan dives deep into the many fees Greystar levies on its tenants and their impacts on renters. Such fees include pet fees, boiler fees, common area maintenance fees, new account fees, administrative billing fees, and trash disposal fees. In one particularly upsetting example, Greystar billed the family of a recently deceased tenant thousands of dollars for breaking her lease by dying.
According to the reporting in The Guardian, court claims across the country allege that Greystar has “embraced add-on fees as ‘profit centers.’”
