In 2023, Nevada Assemblymember Venicia Considine sponsored a bill intended to eliminate “junk fees,” or unexpected mandatory charges that are often tacked onto an advertised monthly rent price after a tenant has signed their lease. Her involvement came in conjunction with increased federal pushback against the problem and a similar bill that passed in California that same year.
In Nevada, however, Considine’s bill ultimately failed under Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s veto pen. She returned in 2025 with a new version, Assembly Bill 121, which made enough incremental changes to earn Lombardo’s support. It’s slated to officially go into effect on October 1.
On September 30, Considine joined the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance (NHJA) near the front steps of the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas to highlight the bill’s impact alongside other state housing and tenant rights activists.
“It covers all aspects of the rental process—from a fair application, a clear lease, and even to the ways tenants have to pay their rent,” NHJA coalition coordinator Ben Iness said. “It's such an important issue because junk fees create barriers in applying for rental housing. This bill really reins in a lot of those practices to make it clear and transparent.”
The legislation addresses junk fees by requiring landlords to include the full monthly rental price in the initially advertised rate. They must also offer a free option to pay rent—rather than asking tenants to use an app that forces them to front a credit card surcharge or similar fee—and provide mandatory refunds for any application or credit check fees they accepted for a unit while it was already off the market.
“When you are a renter, one of the things you need to have is certainty,” Considine said. “For several years now, what we're seeing is you have a price for rent, and then suddenly, after you've signed your lease, you look on your app and see that your rent is $250 more than what you agreed to.”
Considine, a Democrat representing Nevada’s 18th district and a former consumer protection attorney, also noted that the bill gives tenants a legal “hammer” to combat landlords who fail to comply.
“Anything mandatory is within the rent they tell you. If you get a quote for that unit, and you go in to sign your lease and they're telling you a different price, you can sue them for initial statutory damages of $250 in Justice Court,” she said. “If it turns out that the courthouse is seeing the same problem with certain apartment complexes or property management entities, the judge can pile on additional fees to stop bad behavior.”
Tenants like Brian Torres Suazo, a Culinary Union member employed as a food runner at Westgate, shared his own struggles with “unfair fees” before lauding the bill’s passage as a turning point.
“With my current apartment, I had to pay $300 just to apply, which I could've lost if I hadn't gotten approved. I'm expected to pay a fee when I pay my rent via debit card, and I'm asked to pay with my bank info to avoid that fee by putting it into a hard-to-use, sketchy-looking website that sometimes doesn’t work,” Torres Suazo said.
Tamara Favors, an organizer with the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, cited the bill’s success as just “one step” toward offsetting the “corporate greed” that advocates say has long stifled efforts to even the playing field. She then urged activists and weary tenants to keep their feet on the gas ahead of the 2027 legislative session.
“We need to continue to organize our friends, our families and neighbors to hold these landlords accountable for unsafe homes, skyrocketing rents and cruel evictions. Please join us in making sure Nevadans can thrive in a place we all call home,” she said.
