State Specific Question About: ARKANSAS (AR)

In most cases you can NOT evict for a tenant not paying their late fee's as stated in their lease. But what I do is send them a letter that they owe "so much" in late fees and need to remit it with their next rental payment or before. Then when the tenant hasn't paid the late fee, I sen them a notice that I'm deducting their late fee from their deposit. I get proof that the tenant has received that notice.

Then I can always sue in small claims court or when I raise their rent, I also raise their deposit also, asking them to maintain the required deposit balance.

Ditto what Paulio said. My tenants ALWAYS pay the late fee....unless they pay nothing at all. In which case it's a slam dunk.

Agree with the others -- you apply any payments to late fees FIRST and then only to rent... EXCEPT:

You mentioned Housing and Section 8. Are they paying a PORTION, at least? If they are paying a portion, then you can apply their portion towards the late fees first as suggested above.

However, if Section 8 is paying their ENTIRE payment, then you actually may NOT apply any of that to late fees first due to your separate agreement with the government. They won't allow you to do that.

So, it really matters here if they are paying for ANY of their rent or if it is 100% subsidized by the government through a Housing Voucher or Section 8.

- John...

John...if Sec 8 is paying 100%....I wouldn't think there should be any late payments. I've seen weird things with Govt money, though. *shrugs

Anyway, nit-picky details aside, the bottom line is we get what we allow. If thru some quirk of your state laws, a Sec 8 contract, or whatever that says you CAN'T apply money received to late fees first, then you must make a decision to continue accepting late payments with no late fee or terminate the contract. Some folks will rationalize and say they'd rather just keep getting the rent even without the late fee, but think about this: if they're not following the on-time rent payment part of the lease....what OTHER parts of the lease are they not following?

In some states, you can not deduct late fees from the rent. You can't do that in Oregon. I suspect that a Section 8 lease is not going to allow it, either. I know you can't evict for non-payment if the government doesn't pay their share-- and sometimes they don't.

The tenant I had recently that refused to pay late fees found himself moving and then his account was given to collections. I now have a garnishment on him and collecting his late fees every month.

Sid: HA! You're right. I somehow didn't put that together. Of course it isn't 100% Section 8 since we're talking late fees. :) My bad.

- John...

"Late fees" or "Late charges" as we used to indicate in our leases are not accepted by CA liberal judges anymore. These judges now demand a proof of damages from LLs who claim that the rent was late, which is one way of rejecting the right of the LL to impose a late fee, the way we used to.

So crafty CA lawyers came up with "administrative cost" of $3 a day associated with collecting and recording late rents when rent is not paid on time, for a maximum of 20 days. It must be in the rental agreement.

You don't pay your cable bill on time, you get a late fee.

You don't pay your property tax on time, you get a late charge.

You don't pay your credit card bill on time, there is a late fee.

And so on.

Only LLs have to show how they were damaged by their Ts who was late.

This is another example of the assault on mom and pop LLs in CA. Coming soon to your sate.