Tenant refuses to pay late fee

[Gregory Massi]

Hello everyone,

Just thinking about a hypothetical situation where the tenant pays the rent after the due date but refuses to pay the additional late fee. How would you go about getting this money from them, or would you just deduct it from their security deposit? (let's assume that it was only a few hunderd dollars and this is the first time the tenant missed the due date)

[Nicole A.]

And check your local laws. Some laws state that the order of payments is towards any fees FIRST and then the remainder towards rent. So if that's the case for your area, they have indeed paid the late fee, but are short on rent.