City should create Renters Court to fix imbalance

Don't get me started on rental junk fees.

It's taken me six years, but after numerous calls and office visits, I finally understand most of the surcharges my mega apartment complex charges me every month.

For starters, my rent was $730 a month when I moved into my tiny Northeast Heights studio apartment in January 2020. The rent increased to $780 in November 2021, $915 in November 2022, $965 in December 2024 and $994 in December 2025. It's leveling off, but that's still a 36% increase in six years for the same 467-square-foot apartment. I don't like moving: I've got newspapers and bills scattered everywhere.

Whatever my grand total due each month is, I can count on about a hundred dollars of surcharges, which Albuquerque City Councilor Nichole Rogers more aptly describes as "junk charges."

Here are mine from last month: $16.70 for water, $9.73 for sewer, $11.77 for trash, $10.97 for gas (I have a separate account with New Mexico Gas Co. for inside my apartment, the surcharge is for the water heater, I'm told), $8.03 for common area maintenance (I have no idea how that's calculated), a $6 utility service fee (for calculating my other surcharges every month), a $4.95 utility fee for paying my bill online (They don't take cash or checks), $3 for pest control (I haven't seen that guy in six months), and a $15 renter insurance waiver fee that I've been trying to get corrected for months. (My required renters insurance hasn't expired in years and yet rental insurance fees periodically pop up on my bill, which I can never get reversed).

The surcharges last month raised my total rent due to $1,080.15 from my base rent of $994. That's about normal in the wintertime. A second daily shower in the summertime will increase the water, sewer and gas surcharges. I don't think they're charging me for each bag of garbage I place in the dumpster, but I wipe my fingerprints clean from my pop cans just in case.

I could go on and on about my apartment complex: How I got locked inside the laundry room one late night and had to break out the only unbarred window to get out; how a tow truck driver hitched my car at the laundry room and I had to come up with $150 cash, and quick, to unhook it or my car would get towed; the $5,000 of damages a mostly peaceful maniac did to my car that wasn't video recorded or covered by the property's insurance; weeklong and frequent water shutoffs; the months last winter I tried to keep warm with a tiny space heater when my apartment's furnace was broken; or how there's nowhere to park at night, unless you want to pay an extra monthly charge for covered parking. 

(Those of us without covered parking permits don't dare take chances and park in a covered spot overnight. You may well get booted or towed. If I take my chances, I park in the condominium across the street, hoping their property management company thinks I'm just there lingering after a one-night stand with a neighbor).

I hear it all the time at the picnic area. Everyone's got landlord/tenant war stories and they're seemingly all contemplating moving because of them. The problem with that is the power imbalance exists at any apartment complex in Albuquerque with more than a few units. From the stories I've heard from other renters, we've all got unforgiving management companies that nickel and dime us to death.

It's the surprise junk fees that get me mad. For example, I paid my rent on the fourth of January. The fourth has been the last day to pay on time since I've lived there. Yet I got a $49 late fee for paying on Jan. 4.

When I inquired about the late fee, I was told my new lease signed in November requires rental payments by the third of the month. 

Monthly rental reminder emails from my landlord still say the fourth is the last day to pay without late fees. It doesn't matter, you can never win. All you can do is pay. One way or another, they've got you with a 50-page lease.

Despite my Albuquerque mega rental experience, I still firmly believe in free markets. I don't want the government getting involved in my every transaction and billing dispute. Let the buyer beware is a good motto. Letting the involved parties, the markets and the courts sort things out is preferable to me than government refereeing. 

However, fellow renter Jake Hamm, who spoke in favor of a proposed renters' rights ordinance offered by Rogers at the Jan. 22 City Council meeting, isn't full of baloney when he says there is a “massive power imbalance” between Albuquerque's tenants and landlords.

Rogers' proposal would have given teeth to a new state law that caps application fees at $50 and makes landlords disclose the full cost of miscellaneous fees before tenants sign leases. As straightforward as the proposal was, it was erringly shot down by the City Council in a 4-5 vote. 

A much more expansive Renter’s Empowerment and Neighborhood Transparency Ordinance died in a City Council committee in June. It was a bridge way too far, affecting almost every element of renting from signing a lease to evictions. As presented, the proposal would have likely increased rental prices by capping pet deposits at $150, when pets do much more damage to the carpeting and walls than that.

I believe a better approach would be to create a Renters Court where tenants, who make up about 40% of Albuquerque residents, could take their complaints about surcharges and other matters, without having to hire a lawyer to recover a $49 disputed late fee.

The Renters Court could examine complaints, talk with property management companies, issue findings of fact and non-binding recommendations, and then publish them online for prospective renters and everyone else to see. The bad publicity alone in the digital age could be enough to discourage bad landlords from implementing unscrupulous rental practices. 

They say you can't fight City Hall: You'll lose every time. But if the city gives us a forum, we could fight our landlords in the Renters Court and win one for the Gipper every now and then.

And it could make for great TV. I'd watch the Renters Court just to root for the little guy slinging a stone at the forehead of the Goliaths.

Are there any objections?

Jeff Tucker is a Journal columnist and the former Opinion editor. He is also a member of the Journal Editorial Board. He may be emailed at jtucker@abqjournal.com.