Landlord Question and Answer Forum

Are there any ohio laws governing amount of late fees and per day late fees.

Assessed fees should be reasonably related to the expenses the landlord incurs as a result of a late payment. A landlord should not charge a fee so high that it calls into question the fairness of the fee, if challenged in court. A judge could look at a daily or per day late fee as punitive, so when figuring the amount to charge per day, keep in mind that it must correlate to the damages sustained by the landlord; for instance $25 per day would probably be considered punitive damages or excessive and IF your tenant were to challenge them in court, you could lose and then may face fines, court and atttorney costs. There are several cases where a landlord lost the case due to assessing too high of a late charge. Be careful!

Posted by Donna , NC on Wednesday, February 3, 2010