united-states residential-lease florida rent payment
Is a mandatory fee added to paying one&#39;s lease legal?
<p>Is it legal for a property management company to require a convenience fee for every type of payment they accept, or must they accept some form of payment that costs nothing extra?  It seems to me that the lease stipulates a contracted total amount of monthly payments, and requiring an additional fee to pay it effectively increases the rent.</p>

<p>Until it was <a href="https://casetext.com/statute/florida-statutes/title-xxxiii-regulation-of-trade-commerce-investments-and-solicitations/chapter-501-consumer-protection/part-i-general-provisions/section-5010117-credit-cards-transactions-in-which-seller-or-lessor-prohibited-from-imposing-surcharge-penalty/analysis?citingPage=1&amp;sort=relevance" rel="nofollow noreferrer">found to be unconstitutional</a>, Florida had a law against surcharges for using a credit card (the statute is still on the books, however). That was the only law against &quot;convenience fees&quot; related to making payments.</p>
<p>Whether or not a business will accept a particular form of payment (check, credit card, money order, traveler's check, cash) is up to business. Apart from credit cards, there has been no law against charging for accepting a particular form of payment, but that charge would have to be part of the contract – the lease would have to specify in advance what the processing fee is for money orders vs. cash vs. credit card. The <a href="http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&amp;URL=0000-0099/0083/0083.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">residential tenancies</a> law of Florida does not prohibit incorporating fees into the terms of a lease (as some states do), so the lease can specify &quot;$1500 for rent plus $10 for payment-processing, every month&quot;.</p>
