Calculating legally compliant rent late fees across U.S. states

https://www.RentLateFee.com

by hrgdevBuilds • 9 months ago

63 75 9 months ago

I built a small tool to clarify how much late fee a landlord can legally charge (and when) in each U.S. state.

Rent laws vary widely: some states set a fixed dollar cap, others a percentage, and a few use only “reasonable” language that’s open to interpretation. Many renters and landlords have no easy way to check what’s actually allowed without reading the statutes themselves.

This project compiles those laws into an instant calculator. Enter rent amount, due date, payment date, and state — it shows the lawful late fee limit, grace period rules, and citation.

It started as a curiosity after seeing conflicting answers online. The goal is transparency, not advocacy; all data is drawn from current state statutes.

The app is lightweight, built in Replit, and runs entirely client-side. I’d be interested in feedback on legal interpretation consistency, data sourcing, or UI clarity.

candiddevmike• 9 months ago

I thought this would be for tenants, but this seems more geared towards landlords. Most landlords have some kind of SaaS platform that will automate all of this for them as part of rent collection, I don't think you'll get many bites on this TBH.

I'd love to see some kind of 50 state tenant resource center, geared towards providing tenants with advice and legal resources.

axus• 9 months ago

I love the ambiguity in who the tool is for. For renters, learning about their rights and fighting illegal fees. For landlords, charging the maximum amount permitted under the law.

limagnolia3• 9 months ago

Or landlords who want to follow the law, but aren't sure what it is, trying to make sure they are doing things right.

Fraterkes• 9 months ago

If you look at the other tools on the page, there's stuff for property-management and sending rent-reminders. I guess they know what part of their userbase is the most moneyed.

terminalshort8• 9 months ago

It's a tool, and like any tool it should be as neutral as possible.

limagnolia3• 9 months ago

Utah appears to be calculating incorrectly, the text says "10% of rent or $75, whichever is GREATER." But it is doing the opposite, showing the lessor of 10% or $75.

limagnolia3• 9 months ago

New Hampshire has the same bug.

redmattred• 9 months ago

Curious what your process for gathering and verifying the legal information was

bpt37• 9 months ago

Based on how inaccurate the information is and the fact that there is no support for local (city, county, town, etc.) regulations, I would say it was a very simple prompt to an LLM with no additional verification.

josefritzishere• 9 months ago

Sounds like a great tool. But it's sad that it needs to exist.

grafmax7• 9 months ago

Our society prioritizes the narrow interests of rentier capitalists over the working class. Unfortunately this means the US is losing international competitiveness across more and more industries. For one thing rent extraction ultimately gets financed by employers through higher wages, thus productive business loses out to business from a region like China where costs of employment are lower. Rather than making economies more efficient like productive business is supposed to do, rentier capitalism means cash flows from the debtor to the creditor class, which forms a feedback loop as the creditor class is able to use this cash to buy more assets and extract more rent simply by expanding its circle of ownership.

bpt37• 9 months ago

Real estate prices are controlled by supply and demand. If you want a lower cost of living than desirable places in the US, alternatives (like China, or the Rust Belt) exist.

And if you think housing prices are bad in the US, you should look at the rest of the developed world.

SilverElfin• 9 months ago

Yep. A lot of these regulations end up hurting small landlords because only corporate landlords with a large number of units can comply easily and absorb costs of bad tenants.

bpt37• 9 months ago

Sad in what way?

Renters will always exist, and some will be unable or unwilling to adhere to the contract they signed. Like all contracts, there are penalities for non-compliance (on both sides).

grafmax7• 9 months ago

These leases generally are not a contract between equals. One party owns extra housing. The other owns none and gets charged for this fact. It’s institutionalized exploitation. Legal, sure. People being unable to pay for a basic necessity while others have so much that they can profit off it - its not unreasonable to call this “sad”.

ecshafer• 9 months ago

There are laws at the county and city levels as well as state levels. So this is insufficient.

goldenCeasar• 9 months ago

This looks something that could work nicely with my calculation DSL (https://github.com/amuta/kumi) This is one of the scenarios that was in my head: auditable/exportable/reusable tax-related calculations schemas.

pseudocomposer• 9 months ago

At least for North Carolina, it's wrong/self-inconsistent. The quoted text (and linked NC legislation) says the max is:

$15 or 5% of rent, whichever is GREATER. 5-day grace period. One-time fee per late payment.

But this site seems to say the legal maximum is whichever is lower (i.e., it won't go above $15).

shimmers• 9 months ago

Being a landlord is one of the most directly parasitical things a person can do to another person.

I see all the bugs here about how it minimizes fees by reversing a particular comparison, and for a second I got excited -- maybe it's a subversive site? But no, just AI blunders.

nashashmi• 9 months ago

for nj the legal source brings up a 404. https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisions/codes/publications/pdf_lti/...

dotnet003• 9 months ago

I don't know how I feel about the concept of late rent fees...

On one hand, you did agree to the payment schedule when you signed the lease, but on the other hand, tacking on fees to someone who is already struggling to pay, to support mainly parasites responsible for creating a lot of the issues facing young people, is also not great.

bpodgursky2• 9 months ago

People are lazy. Without penalties, nobody will ever pay a bill. Doesn't matter if they are rich or poor. They could have $1mm cash sitting on their desk and unless you motivate them, they're just not going to open the bill.

That's just the reality of sending bills or invoices. Half the time it's not about malice, just no reason to bother being timely.

dotnet003• 9 months ago

This is simply not true, the vast majority of people continued to pay their bills and rent on time through Covid despite financial pressures and suspension of most penalties.

The cases of abuse are so egregious precisely because most people were just normal well meaning people doing their best to meet their obligations.

grafmax7• 9 months ago

There’s really nothing lazier than making money simply by owning more than others. Such a person doesn’t have to produce anything of value. They can simply just use their outsized wealth to buy something others need, then charge money for access to it. This drains cash from those who have no other option than working for a living while their own coffers grow. Not just lazy, this actively makes the economy less efficient by increasing the cost of living and necessitating higher wages from employers simply to finance parasitism, which means value-producing businesses become less competitive also.

everforward• 9 months ago

Not a landlord, but landlords have financial obligations they need to meet as well, and not getting rent can create issues there. They still have to pay taxes, insurance, repairs, etc.

I think late fees are fine, but shouldn't be enforceable in the event the lease is cancelled by either party (ie eviction or early termination). Tenants would still owe back rent, but not punitive fines for being unable to pay.

I'd also say there should be some method to punish landlords for illegal terms in leases, like late fees in excess of what the law allows. I watch court streams sometimes and the percentage of landlords who have illegally high late fees is shocking and I've never seen a punishment beyond "you can only tack on late fees of $X by law".

dotnet003• 9 months ago

Yeah, I get that landlords have financial obligations too, which is why I'm torn on it.

The mechanism exists so good landlords (who take the responsibility of having a tenant seriously) aren't scammed out by bad renters, but, it seems like most landlords aren't that way, instead utilizing every tool available to maximize their property value and minimize the ability for renters to own their own properties, regardless of the social harm they cause.

Calculating legally compliant rent late fees across U.S. states

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