What late fees can a landlord charge in West Virginia?

Verified July 11, 2026 All West Virginia topics →

West Virginia sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — no statute regulates when rent is late or what lateness may cost, so the lease governs.

The one statutory nod to late fees is in the security-deposit law: a landlord may deduct unpaid late charges from the deposit only if they are 'reasonable' and 'specified in the rental agreement' (W. Va. Code 37-6A-2(b)(1)), which makes a clear written late-fee clause the practical prerequisite to collecting through the deposit. Beyond that, an unreasonable fee risks being struck down as a contract penalty under ordinary liquidated-damages principles. Two West Virginia statutes that do cap late fees are routinely miscited to landlords: the $20-or-20% cap in §38-14-4 applies only to self-service storage units, and the lesser-of-5%-or-$15 cap in §46B-3-9(c) applies only to rent-to-own contracts for consumer goods — neither touches apartment or house rentals.

West Virginia late fees at a glance

Statutory cap	No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes)
Mandatory grace period	None mandated statewide
Must be in the lease	Not addressed by statute
Daily fees	Not addressed by statute; a daily fee is a lease matter bounded by ordinary contract and liquidated-damages principles, and — if the landlord ever wants to take it from the deposit — by the 37-6A-2(b)(1) requirement that late charges be reasonable and specified in the rental agreement.
Reasonableness standard	No general statutory standard — West Virginia's landlord-tenant statutes never regulate late-fee amounts (negative sweep of ch. 37 arts. 6, 6A, and 15 full texts). The one statutory hook is W. Va. Code 37-6A-2(b)(1): a security deposit may be applied to unpaid rent 'including the reasonable charges for late payment of rent specified in the rental agreement' — so only reasonable, lease-specified late charges are deductible from a deposit. Otherwise enforceability rests on ordinary contract/liquidated-damages law; no WV appellate decision fixing a formula was found.

Notes and caveats

statutory_cap and grace_period_days null: verified negative — full official texts of ch. 37 arts. 6 (zero occurrences of 'late' as a word), 6A, and 15 swept 2026-07-11. must_be_in_lease null rather than true: no statute conditions charging a late fee on a written lease; the 'specified in the rental agreement' requirement in 37-6A-2(b)(1) governs only DEDUCTION FROM THE DEPOSIT (and note 'rental agreement' includes oral agreements under 37-6A-1(12)), while general contract law supplies the agreement requirement otherwise — SEO charts asserting 'WV law requires late fees to be in a written lease' overstate the statute. TRAPS DEBUNKED: (1) §38-14-4 ($20 or 20% of monthly rental fee, whichever is GREATER, after a five-day default) is the self-service storage lien act, not housing; (2) §46B-3-9(c) (5% or $15, whichever is LESS, with 3-day/5-day timing) is the rent-to-own act for consumer goods; (3) 'courts view 5-10% as reasonable' claims circulating online have no WV statutory or published-appellate basis. WVCCPA (ch. 46A) debt-collection provisions can reach abusive collection of rental debt but contain no late-fee cap for leases. HB 5155 (2026) and HB 2903 (2025), which would have banned 'convenience fees' for tenants, both died in House Judiciary.

Statute citations

W. Va. Code § 37-6A-2 (b)(1) Official source
W. Va. Code ch. 37, art. 6 (full-article text — swept; contains no late-fee or grace-period provision) Official source
W. Va. Code § 38-14-4 (self-service storage units only — NOT dwellings) Official source
W. Va. Code § 46B-3-9 (rent-to-own consumer goods only — NOT dwellings) (c) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official WV Legislature code site (code.wvlegislature.gov): sections 37-6A-1, 37-6A-2, 37-6A-5, and 37-6-5 each read at least three times across two distinct official presentations (individual section pages fetched twice — once via rendered fetch, once via raw curl — plus the official whole-article 'email view' pages /email/37-6A/ and /email/37-6/), with all load-bearing figures matching verbatim (60-day/45-day whichever-shorter return window, 15-day contractor-itemization extension, 1.5x annoyance/inconvenience damages, one-full-period month-to-month termination notice, 6-month hold and 72-hour delivery rules). All of article 6A additionally reconciled character-for-character against the enrolled Committee Substitute for HB 3202 (2011) on wvlegislature.gov — approved by the Governor 2011-04-01, Chapter 149, Acts 2011, effective 2011-06-10 — proving the 1.5x penalty is original 2011 text with no later amendment. Verified negatives (no deposit cap, no interest, no separate account, no late-fee or grace-period statute, no entry-notice statute, no rent-increase-notice statute, no rent-control or preemption statute) run against the full official texts of ch. 37 arts. 6 (all 31 sections), 6A, and 15. Bill outcomes verified on official Bill_Status action tables: dead bills SB590 (2022), SB147 (2023, House-rejected Roll No. 638), SB165 (2024), HB4695 (2006), HB4570/HB4432/HB5155/HB5334 (2026), HB2537/HB2648/HB2828/HB2903 (2025); enacted 2025 acts HB2434 (Stop Squatters Act, Ch. 219, eff. 2025-07-10) and HB3272 (eviction hearing scheduling, Ch. 1, eff. 2025-07-11) confirmed off-topic. 2026 regular session adjourned sine die 2026-03-14 with no on-topic bill passing. Legal Aid WV pages used as corroboration only.