Landlord's Corner - Apartment lease agreement Late fees in Ohio

A. Limits As To Amounts

There are two lines of cases in Ohio which deal with whether courts will enforce lease provisions allowing a landlord to charge tenants for late fees. These lines of cases come to slightly different conclusions, but the bottom line is that landlords need to be very careful in charging tenants for late fees.

The first line of cases comes to us from the Eighth Appellate District. In the case of Siara Management v. Nedley, 1992 Ohio App. LEXIS 5265 (Oct. 15, 1992) Cuyahoga App. No. 61433, unreported, the lease called for the tenant to pay $30.00 in late fees if he was late five days, and $70.00 more if he were late ten days. The landlord tried to charge these amounts to the tenant and litigation ensued.

The Eighth Appel View the rest of this article