Taking late fees out of security deposit

[mcanna67]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Ohio

I was wondering if late fees can be taken out of a security deposit. Does a Landlord have to ask you to make the security deposit whole first? i.e. Tenant is late 20 times in 5 years. Late fees are $25.00. Landlord withholds $25.00 for each late rental payment. At the end of 5 years, a $750.00 security deposit has been chewed away to $250.00 ($750.00-$500=$250.00). Provided there are no other issues, Tenant gets a check for $250.00 plus interest that accrued for each year. First year, 5 late fees brought the $750.00 down to $625.00 plus interest of ????. I don't know what interest rates are applied for each year from 2008 to present. BTW, 2008 was only for 1 1/2 months. How is interest calculated? Is there a formula? Also, the security deposit was $100.00 at one point more than the monthly rental amount which was lowered because Tenant acted as Property Manager for the other rentals in lieu of paying $100.00. So, Tenant did $100.00 worth of work each month just by being available for use with the other properties and sometimes actually did have to do work for the other properties. Later, the monthly rental amount was reduced another $50.00 as Tenant did repairs each month to their own property in lieu of the $50.00 which brought the actual money exchange down to $650.00 from the original $800.00. The security deposit is $800.00. Thanks!

 

[FarmerJ]

Your state laws will dictate how much interest or what the formula is for LLs to follow so check your states landlord tenant links or your state atty gen consumer affairs pages. As to LL holding back lates that they did not collect / enforce at the time the lates occurred I dont think much of LLs who do that kind of crap when the lates are very very old SO again check in the two sites I mentioned and if you cannot find anything maybe the thing to do is see if someone at your state atty generals offices knows , see the ideal thing goes like this > Jon is late on his rent but did not include his late fee so Johns LL sends to him a certified letter calling attention to the late fee not being inc and quoting the part of the lease that addresses late fees and either tells john to send it in NOW or risk being in violation of his lease ( which means that John could be given notice to get out or LL may refuse to accept the next months rent with out it or if Johns state laws do not limit Johns LL to using the deposit only for physical damage then the LL can deduct it and send to the tenant proper notice telling tenant that the deposit is now short and they have x amount of time to send in the late fee deposit is replenished / not short and then LL could again declare a breach of lease if John did not fix it. < BUT when landlords sit on their hands and do nothing then irs very fair to challenge them and that includes suing in small claims court and in court asking why the LL should be able to collect on so many older late fees if the LL took no action sooner?