If you own rental property in Connecticut, the Connecticut rental advertising law 2025 — Public Act 25-44, signed by the Governor on June 10, 2025 — changed how every residential listing in the state must be written. The advertising provisions took effect October 1, 2025. If your listings still show a base rent figure that buries required fees in the fine print, you are out of compliance today.
This post breaks down exactly what the law requires, what is and is not exempt, and why Greater Waterbury multi-family owners face compounded exposure the more units they have on the market.
What PA 25-44 Actually Requires
Under PA 25-44, no landlord may advertise, display, or otherwise offer a dwelling unit for rent in an amount that excludes any fee, charge, or cost that the tenant of the advertised unit shall be required to pay on a periodic basis.
The word “periodic” matters:
any fee, charge, or cost that a tenant shall be required to pay on a periodic basis must be prorated and included in the advertised rent — and any fee charged to the tenant by default on a monthly basis must be included, regardless of whether the tenant may opt out.
That last clause is significant. You cannot exclude a fee from the advertised price simply because a tenant has the theoretical ability to opt out of it. If it defaults on and it recurs periodically, it belongs in the number you post publicly.
What Must Be Included — and What Is Exempt
The law covers any mandatory, recurring charge. Common examples in multi-family settings that would need to be rolled into the advertised rent figure include:
- Mandatory parking fees — if every tenant in a unit is required to pay for a parking spot, that monthly charge must be included
- Mandatory amenity or common-area access fees — if tenants are charged for trash service, package lockers, or building amenities as a default monthly line item, those are covered
- Mandatory renter’s portal or technology fees — recurring software or portal fees that tenants are required to pay fall under the law’s scope
- Any other required recurring charge — if it appears on every tenant’s ledger every month, it belongs in the ad
Notable exceptions to the state’s fee disclosure requirements under PA 25-44 are payment processing fees, pet fees or deposits, utilities paid directly by tenants, and damage charges.
Optional add-ons can be excluded from the displayed total, but only if the landlord provides clear notice and reveals costs before any agreement is signed.
The practical takeaway: if a fee is truly elective — the tenant must affirmatively choose and pay for it — it may be excludable. If it shows up automatically, it must be in the advertised price.
The Penalty: One Month’s Rent Per Violation
Any landlord who violates the new law’s provisions is liable to the tenant for a civil penalty of one month’s rent, and the court may award reasonable attorney’s fees and costs to the tenant (PA 25-44, §§ 8–10, effective October 1, 2025).
For a single-family rental or a one-unit condo, that is a manageable but painful fine. For a Greater Waterbury multi-family owner with six, ten, or twenty units, the exposure compounds quickly. If you run a vacancy campaign across an entire building — listing multiple non-compliant units simultaneously — each listing is a separate potential violation. One non-compliant template copied across ten units is ten separate one-month-rent penalties, plus attorney’s fees on each.
The Coming Lease Disclosure Requirement
The advertising rule is not the only deadline in PA 25-44.
By January 1, 2026, the Connecticut Department of Housing was required to publish a standardized rental terms summary form in English and Spanish, and beginning April 1, 2026, landlords may not provide a written lease unless it includes this completed form and the first page of the agreement.
The form clearly summarizes the key terms of the rental arrangement, including but not limited to the term of the rental, the name of the landlord, and the point of contact for property management issues.
If you are a self-managing owner, review your lease template now. The standardized form must be attached starting April 1, 2026.
How to Update Your Listings Before You Have a Problem
The fix is straightforward in concept, even if the audit takes time:
- Pull every active listing across every platform — Zillow, Apartments.com, Facebook Marketplace, your own website, Craigslist — and treat each one as a separate compliance item.
- List every fee you currently charge in writing. Sort them into two columns: mandatory/recurring and optional/one-time.
- Calculate the compliant advertised price for each unit by adding all mandatory periodic fees to the base rent. This becomes your listing number going forward.
- Update every listing and document the date you made the change. If a complaint is ever filed, showing that you acted promptly and in good faith matters.
- Revise your lease template to prepare for the April 1, 2026 standardized form requirement — do not wait until March.
Why This Matters More for Multi-Family Owners in Greater Waterbury
Owners of multi-family properties in Waterbury, Watertown, Naugatuck, and Oxford operate in a market where many buildings were acquired under an older landlord model: advertise a low base rent, then layer on fees for parking, trash, and building amenities. PA 25-44 ends that approach for any mandatory recurring charge.
The more units in your portfolio, the more listing instances you have to audit. A six-unit building in Waterbury with three vacancies listed simultaneously, each carrying an improperly excluded $75 mandatory parking charge, is a $225-per-month-rent liability waiting to surface. Scale that across a larger portfolio and the numbers become serious quickly.
Beyond the direct penalty risk, Connecticut has been steadily strengthening its tenant-protection framework.
A Connecticut law enacted in 2025 strengthens tenant protections by capping fees, extending grace periods, banning application fees, requiring safe housing standards, and sealing certain eviction records from public view.
Advertising compliance is now one more area where the legal standard has risen — and where tenants have a clear, actionable remedy if you miss it.
It is also worth noting that Connecticut’s rent increase framework has tightened in recent years.
Under Connecticut General Statutes § 47a-4e, landlords must give tenants at least 45 days’ written notice before increasing rent, provided the lease is for more than one month.
At Premio Property Management, our rent increase process is specifically designed around this requirement: we issue notices after the 10th of the month — once we have confirmed rent has already been received — ensuring tenants get well over 45 days before any increase takes effect and eliminating the risk of a procedural dispute before the notice even goes out.
If you are navigating a fair rent commission complaint in Waterbury or another municipality, that is also an area where having a structured process — and clean documentation — is essential. For more on how the legal landscape for Connecticut landlords has been evolving, see our post on recent Connecticut security deposit law changes and what they mean for Waterbury area landlords.
How Premio Structures Listings From Day One
When Premio Property Management onboards a new owner in Greater Waterbury, listing compliance is built into the process — not checked retroactively. Every fee that will be charged to a tenant is identified, categorized, and either rolled into the advertised rent or confirmed as a permissible exclusion before any unit goes live on any platform. That means the listing you see reflects the number a tenant will actually pay for their required monthly obligations — which is what the law now requires and what a well-qualified tenant expects to see anyway.
Correct listings also reduce friction at lease signing. When a tenant sees $1,450/month advertised and the lease says $1,450 plus a $75 mandatory parking fee, that conversation goes sideways. When the listing said $1,525 from the start, there is nothing to explain.
For a broader look at how we approach property maintenance and seasonal planning for multi-family buildings in the area, see our summer maintenance checklist for multi-family rental properties in Connecticut.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this law apply to month-to-month tenancies and lease renewals, or only new listings?
PA 25-44’s advertising provisions apply any time a unit is advertised, displayed, or offered for rent — which includes new listings as well as re-listings of units coming off existing leases. If you are posting a unit publicly in any form, the compliant all-in price must be what you post. Always consult a Connecticut real estate attorney for guidance specific to your situation.
My mandatory parking fee is billed separately on a different invoice. Does it still need to be in the advertised rent?
The law covers any fee, charge, or cost the tenant shall be required to pay on a periodic basis — and such fees must be prorated and included in the advertised rent.
How you invoice internally does not change what the law requires in the listing. If the charge is mandatory and recurring, it must be in the number you advertise. Confirm your specific situation with legal counsel.
What happens if a tenant files a complaint after seeing a listing that predates their tenancy?
Landlords violating these provisions can be liable to the tenant for a civil penalty equal to one month’s rent, and in certain circumstances courts can award attorney’s fees and costs.
There is no minimum harm threshold in the penalty structure — the violation is the non-compliant listing itself. If you have any listings that were posted before you audited for compliance, update them and document the correction date now.
If you own multi-family rental property in Waterbury, Watertown, Oxford, Naugatuck, or the surrounding area and want to make sure your listings are structured correctly under Connecticut’s new rental advertising law, contact Premio Property Management to talk through what compliance looks like for your specific portfolio.
