I receive a question from my blog this past week that I thought might be important to other readers. The names have been removed to protect the guilty ;-)

QUESTION:

I have recently been in a late fee problem at a trailer park in Dade County. The manager charged me $2 a day after the 15th of the month, and a standard flat fee of $15 for the first 15 days that kicks in when you are 10 days late. Each month that you are late the months begin to run parallel to one another like horses in a race. In other words, while March is late and accruing late fees of $2 a day, so is February. The end result is a cocktail of late fees totalling $150 or thereabouts when I paid everything on April 1st. I think this must be illegal. Can you help me?

MY ANSWER:

Thank you for your email. I can offer advice about what I would do and how I would interpret your lease, but Florida law says I must inform you that I am NOT a lawyer and CANNOT offer legal advice.

That disclaimer aside, can you email me a copy of your lease? From my experience with various contracts and HOA’s, all monies due are applied to the deficient balance first, then towards the rent that is not yet late. In other words, You can’t skip February, skip February’s late fees, and then pay March in full. Any payment you made would be first credited towards February rent and late fees, and then to March rent.

That does have the snowball effect that you mentioned…not only is February late and accruing penalties, but March then goes late because your March rent is applied first to February.

I am not familiar with Dade County, but Pinellas County has a legal hotline for consumers http://www.pinellascounty.org/consumer/. A similiar Dade County office would be able to direct you further.