lease signing.....

[jj1124]

I live on long Island, Suffolk County- I just signed a 2 yr lease and in it, My LL wrote that rent is due 8 of each month and if rent is not paid in full that 59.66 is due EACH DAY until rent is paid in full there is no grace period. Is this illegal cause im thinking of moving out of here and breaking the lease. It would drive me crazy to think that she is dying to dip into my 2 month security deposit which it over 3 grand. mabe I should get my 3 thousand dollars worth out of beating up her husband.(only Kidding) Please Advise.............

[consigliere]

You don't say how much your monthly rent is, but courts generally will not enforce a late fee that is more than 4% or 5% of the monthly rent.

In New York, there is a 5% limit on late charges in mobile home parks, if the rent is more than ten days late.
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[jj1124]

My monthly rent is 1700.00, When I saw here yesterday I asked her about a grace period and she said," Oh NO!, Definatly Not".

[Bfry]

Well, since that would end up to be more than a month's rent if you ended up a month late($1789.80 for a 30 day month), I don't think any court would uphold it if it came down to that. I suspect it might even come under criminal usury laws, as that's worse interest than most loan sharks. Also, as I understand it late fees are NOT rent, unless they are (mutually?) agreed upon as "additional rent". So, if you got in a position where you were late, make sure that you put a notation on your rent check that it is for that specific months RENT. She could probably try to sue you for them separately, but not use nonpayment of late fees as a grounds for eviction. At least not at those rates.

But check with your towns dept. of housing or equivalent to make sure. And if you do pay them, no matter how outrageous, you can't recoup them. They're gone, as I recently discovered with my recently former landlord. I started getting behind because roomates would bail due to lack of little things like heat, and she would charge or not as she felt like that day, change the amount on a whim, and try to charge late fees for late fees. It wasn't the only difficulty, but it really muddied up the accounting waters.

It sounds like she's kinda nuts. Excercise extreme caution, and good luck. Careful about breaking the lease wholesale because you might be held responsible for the rent until the lease is up anyway. Read your paperwork closely, and double check everything anyone tells you. Tenant law is complicated, convoluted, different everywhere, and to me often seems to make no sense at all...