What late fees can a landlord charge in West Virginia?

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, no statute governs the amount, so a disputed fee is decided under the general law of contracts. 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

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, West Virginia Late Fee Laws (verified October 2, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/late-fees/west-virginia/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

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Notes and caveats

• No cap and no grace period is an absence of law — Both answers are empty because chapter 37, articles 6, 6A and 15 set no late-fee cap and no grace period. The only mention of late charges is the deposit-deduction rule in 37-6A-2(b)(1), and article 6 does not use the word 'late' even once.
• 'Must be in the lease' is unanswered, not a yes — No statute conditions a late fee on a written lease for tenancies generally. The 'specified in the rental agreement' requirement of 37-6A-2(b)(1) governs only deduction from the security deposit, while general contract law supplies the agreement requirement otherwise. The one exception is a factory-built home site: its rental agreement must be in writing (37-15-3(a)), and the landlord may not demand or collect any fee that is not listed in it (37-15-5(a)(1)). Charts asserting that West Virginia law requires every late fee to be in a written lease overstate the statute.
• 'Rental agreement' includes oral agreements — Under the definition at 37-6A-1(12), a rental agreement need not be written.
• The $20-or-20% cap is a storage-unit rule — 38-14-4 sets $20 or 20% of the monthly rental fee, whichever is greater, after a five-day default — but it is the self-service storage lien act, not housing law.
• The 5%-or-$15 cap is a rent-to-own rule — 46B-3-9(c) sets 5% or $15, whichever is less, with 3-day and 5-day timing — but it is the rent-to-own act for consumer goods.
• The '5-10% is reasonable' claim has no statutory basis — No West Virginia statute names a percentage as a reasonable late fee on a residential lease; claims that 5 to 10 percent is the accepted range have no basis in the statutes.
• The consumer-protection act is not a cap — WVCCPA debt-collection provisions (chapter 46A) can reach abusive collection of rental debt, but they contain no late-fee cap for leases.
• Convenience-fee bans that did not pass — HB 5155 (2026) and HB 2903 (2025) would have banned 'convenience fees' for tenants; both died in House Judiciary.

Common questions: West Virginia late fees

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Is there a legal limit on late fees in West Virginia?

No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). West Virginia's landlord-tenant statutes set no standard for late-fee amounts. The one statutory hook is W. Va. Code 37-6A-2(b)(1), under which only reasonable, lease-specified late charges may be deducted from a security deposit.

Is there a grace period before rent is late in West Virginia?

None mandated statewide.

Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in West Virginia?

Not addressed by statute.

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in West Virginia?

No statute addresses daily late fees, so a daily fee is a lease matter bounded by ordinary contract and liquidated-damages principles.

Citations

• W. Va. Code § 37-6A-2 · (b)(1) (verified 2026) Official source
• W. Va. Code ch. 37, art. 6 (full-article text; contains no late-fee or grace-period provision) (verified 2026) Official source
• W. Va. Code § 38-14-4 (self-service storage units only — NOT dwellings) (verified 2026) Official source
• W. Va. Code § 46B-3-9 (rent-to-own consumer goods only — NOT dwellings) · (c) (verified 2026) 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 read twice independently, plus the official whole-article 'email view' pages /email/37-6A/ and /email/37-6/), with all key 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 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) confirmed off-topic for these deposit, rent, fee, and entry topics (it amended the ch. 55 art. 3C squatter-removal scheme that HB4940 of 2024 created, treated as out of scope in the eviction topic's notes); HB3272 (Ch. 1, Acts 2025 — passed 2025-04-12, approved by the Governor 2025-04-28, eff. 2025-07-11) is on-topic, not off: it amended and reenacted W. Va. Code 55-3A-1, the core residential-eviction petition statute (filing-first hearing scheduling plus the tenant's five-day written-defense window), and its changes are carried in the eviction_process topic. The eviction topic is verified on its own track (see its topic_verified date and notes): its build pass reconciled the codified 55-3A-1 against the enrolled HB3272 word for word and ran currency checks on adjacent sections (50-2-1 reflecting HB2761 (2025), 2-2-1 reflecting SB793 (2026), 55-3C reflecting HB2434 (2025)); 55-3A-1 and 37-6-19 were independently re-read 2026-07-25; and on 2026-08-05 the enrolled HB3272 text and the codified 55-3A-1 were each read twice more and matched character-for-character, with the passage (2025-04-12) and gubernatorial-approval (2025-04-28) dates confirmed as distinct events from the official Bill_Status action table. 2026 regular session adjourned sine die 2026-03-14 with no on-topic bill passing. On October 2, 2026 every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee and entry answers rest on was read again on code.wvlegislature.gov: sections 37-6A-1 to 37-6A-6, the whole of chapter 37, articles 6, 6A and 15, chapter 55, articles 3A, 3B and 3C, section 8-1-5a, and sections 38-14-4 and 46B-3-9, with the Legislature's tables of code sections affected for every regular and special session from 2011 through 2026 (no 2025 or 2026 act amended articles 6, 6A or 15). Article 15, on factory-built home sites, limits a landlord to the fees listed in the written rental agreement (37-15-5(a)(1)) and bars retaliatory rent increases (37-15-7(a)). The codes of ordinances of Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown were read for rent regulation, and Dibella v. Mastermonico, No. 26-ICA-17 (September 25, 2026), on the courts' site.