Broker charging lease renewal fee for rental property

[Lindsey Clark]

Hi BP community! I need some advice on dealing with a broker fee in the state of Florida. Perhaps a realtor or someone who has been through this can offer some insight. So I used a realtor to rent out my condo for the first time. I usually do my own advertising but I have been very busy lately and decided to use help filling my condos vacancy. I made the mistake of signing a contract with a realtor that states that I will owe 5% to the broker each year the lease is renewed. I am ok paying the 10% commission but do not want to pay someone an annual fee for doing nothing. Now that I have a tenant in place I am wondering if there is anything I can do about this annual fee or am I stuck with it at this point? The balance of the commission has not been payed yet. So far they have only collected 1 months worth of rent so I feel like I could possibly have some leverage to get rid of this annual fee before I send them the balance. Any feedback on how I can or should handle this would be greatly appreciated. 

[Wendell Fong]

I am going to take the other side on this argument.  The reason is that I have had poor experiences with companies that did't charge a lease renewal fee, but they charged 100% of the first month of a new lease.    This in effect was an incentive for the PM company to rotate tenants in and out of my properties.   When I negotiate with a new PM company, I try to work down the new lease fee and increase their renewal fee. 

Just my 2c.