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I built a small tool to clarify how much late fee a landlord can legally charge (and when) in each U.S. state. Rent laws vary widely: some states set a fixed d
by hrgdevBuilds 11mo ago
I built a small tool to clarify how much late fee a landlord can legally charge (and when) in each U.S. state.
Rent laws vary widely: some states set a fixed dollar cap, others a percentage, and a few use only “reasonable” language that’s open to interpretation. Many renters and landlords have no easy way to check what’s actually allowed without reading the statutes themselves.
This project compiles those laws into an instant calculator. Enter rent amount, due date, payment date, and state — it shows the lawful late fee limit, grace period rules, and citation.
It started as a curiosity after seeing conflicting answers online. The goal is transparency, not advocacy; all data is drawn from current state statutes.
The app is lightweight, built in Replit, and runs entirely client-side. I’d be interested in feedback on legal interpretation consistency, data sourcing, or UI clarity.
- candiddevmike 11mo agoI thought this would be for tenants, but this seems more geared towards landlords. Most landlords have some kind of SaaS platform that will automate all of this for them as part of rent collection, I don't think you'll get many bites on this TBH. I'd love to see some kind of 50 state tenant resource center, geared towards providing tenants with advice and legal resources.
- hrgdevBuilds 11mo ago[dead]
- axus 11mo agoI love the ambiguity in who the tool is for. For renters, learning about their rights and fighting illegal fees. For landlords, charging the maximum amount permitted under the law.
- terminalshort 11mo agoIt's a tool, and like any tool it should be as neutral as possible.
- limagnolia 11mo agoOr landlords who want to follow the law, but aren't sure what it is, trying to make sure they are doing things right.
- ryandrake 11mo agoThis is just a nicer way of saying what OP posted. "I want to charge as much as I can, but I want to follow the law and do things right."
- eadmund 11mo agoEverybody wants to charge as much as he can. Workers do the same: we all want to charge as much for our labour as possible. Unions do the same thing too. Everyone also wants to pay as little as he can, too. Fortunately, as long as there are many buyers and many sellers, the market tends to find efficient prices. When there is a monopoly or a monopsony, though, prices get out of wack.
- Bjartr 11mo ago> Everybody Not everybody everybody. Some people want to charge/pay/receive the maximum reasonable amount. Where "reasonable" is informed by social norms. The existence of so many amoral corporations, and sociopathic individuals running them, has absolutely skewed social expectations though. Such people are certainly less common, but they do exist (anecdata of one, me) Homo economicus does not actually exist.
- walkabout 11mo agoMy experience is that kids have to be taught “‘fair’ is what the market will bear” because they start out feeling quite strongly that it’s not true. Tons of kids aren’t taught that, some of them start businesses, and they may struggle to make ends meet (or at least to thrive like they could be) because raising prices to market rates feels so unfair to them that they won’t do it unless prodded to and told it’s ok by someone else (and they still might not) I definitely am not convinced market-rate-is-ethical-and-fair is natural thinking for most people, or the kind of thing they want to do. (I’ve been the one telling people they should raise prices and I still can’t shake the feeling that it’s kinda wrong…)
- Fraterkes 11mo agoIf you look at the other tools on the page, there's stuff for property-management and sending rent-reminders. I guess they know what part of their userbase is the most moneyed.
- limagnolia 11mo agoUtah appears to be calculating incorrectly, the text says "10% of rent or $75, whichever is GREATER." But it is doing the opposite, showing the lessor of 10% or $75.
- limagnolia 11mo agoNew Hampshire has the same bug.
- corndoge 11mo agoOther states do as well.
- gruez 11mo agoGiven that OP said it was "built in Replit"[1], I'm tempted to believe AI misgenerated the underlying calculation code. [1] Replit bills itself as "an AI-powered platform for building professional web apps and websites."
- zahlman 11mo agoI always thought Replit was supposed to be a pastebin site with built-in sandboxed code execution, so people could demo Python snippets and what-not. What happened?
- Scoundreller 11mo agoVibe-coding webapps raise more money
- gruez 11mo agosee: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486035 tl;dr: they pivoted from offering services adjacent to "learn to code" (among other things) to vibecoding
- deleted 11mo ago
- vjekm 11mo ago[flagged]
- gruez 11mo agoMost people aren't lawyers and therefore won't know what statues to read, so they'll need to search/ask AI, which is pretty much what this site does.