Are unreasonable late fees prosecuted as usury? As I understand the term usury: it is the action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest. Are unreasonable late fees prosecuted as usury? Is there mother term? If a concrete example is needed for an answer: assume a Florida commercial lease / rent with a late fee of 1% per day.
england-and-wales This is covered by the Tenant Fees Act 2019. This act caps any late fees for a tenancy to 3% above the Bank of England rate.
The terms are used in inconsistent and overlapping ways. Their meaning has to be determined from context. Words do not have universal meanings in all contexts in the law. A loan generally refers to a delivery of something (often money) with a legally binding expectation that it will be returned with some additional compensation to the lender, later on. To "use a loan" would mean actually receiving a loan from someone. A "grant of a loan" usually means agreeing to make a loan in the near future, rather than actually carrying out the loan at that time. Credit is a broader term with multiple senses. When a purchase is made "on credit", the sale is accompanied by a loan to the buyer to assist the buyer in making the purchase. But, the term a person's "credit" can also refer to an ability to borrow money, rather than to money that has already been loaned. A third sense of the word "credit" is a technical accounting sense of the word. In double entry accounting, a credit is an event that increases a person's assets or reduces their liabilities (in contrast to a "debit" which does the reverse). A transaction that is a credit to one party in double entry accounting is usually a debit with respect to the other party, or is part of an offsetting debt-credit pair of impacts on the person's books in a single event.
Probably not, although it is impossible to say without reading the lease. Usually leases are monthly. That means you pay for the entire month or lease term regardless of how much or how little you use the property. It seems weird that the lease ends on the 21st, but if that is the case, then you are legally obligated to pay for that time interval. That said, if you want to drive a hard bargain, you could threaten to reoccupy the apartment and stay in it until the 21st which are legally entitled to do, unless he refunds you some money. You would have to be a pretty serious hard-ass to pull this off, or be prepared to go to court. One possible course of action is that you demand return of the key and say you changed your mind and will be staying in the apartment until the 21st. Make sure the conversation is recorded and that he knows the conversation is recorded, or have a witness. He will refuse. You can then sue him for denying you the use of your property.
Well ... the crime of fraud and the tort of deception. If you say you will do X and enter a contract on that basis knowing that you won't then that is fraud and it carries gaol time. Your bank could also revoke your contract and sue for damages.
If the requirement for the debt is that the debt be paid in US dollars, absent some other stipulation to the contrary, $2 bills are US dollars and would satisfy the debtors obligation. It's hard to envision a situation where one would go before a judge or magistrate to enforce one's right to pay a debt with a $2 bill, but I suppose that effort would be successful. A debt that is to be paid in US dollars can be paid in $2 bill increments.
You mean like this? Of course, a website can charge you to access its pages; many do. And yes, clicking on an "I agree" button can form a valid contract (just visiting the website can't). Historically, the law has adopted the position that if you sign it (including by clicking "I agree") you read it, you understood it and you agreed to it. It's hard to imaging how it could be otherwise because allowing people to get out of contracts by saying "I never read it" is problematical as well. However, there are two things that mitigate against the type of term you suggest; one practical and one legal. Practical: How do they get your money? They can ask for your credits card details and, if they do and you give them a court will probably come to the conclusion that you knowingly and willingly agreed to pay for the service. However, if they don't have any method of getting money from you, they would have to take you to court to do so. There are a number of practical problems with this like: who are you? where are you? Which court can they sue you in etc. Legal: At common law, there exists the doctrine of unconscionability that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favour of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience. Such terms are legally unenforcable. Further, in many jurisdictions, consumer protection law often give additional protections up to and including not enforcing terms that are merely unfair not just unconscionable.
There is a good chance that you have some kind of remedy. But, in all likelihood, there is no cost effective remedy to vindicate your rights in a $400 dispute. If it was a $400,000 dispute, the federal courts would provide a good venue to resolve the dispute. In a $400 dispute, your best shot is probably to seek to have the credit card company reverse the charges, if you paid by credit card, or resort to consumer arbitration, if the contract of sale provided for it. I don't know if the remedies available for a credit card purchase in these circumstances are also available in the case of a debit card, but the agreement by the bank on that issue would be worth investigating.
Is this something for small claims court Yes. The explicitness of your prior leases overrides the statutory variations that might exist among jurisdictions in this regard. And the total of 50$/month for six or seven years indicates that you would have to pursue recovery in small claims court (at least if the landlord refuses to reimburse you). In Wisconsin, the statute of limitations for breach of contract is six years. See 893.43. Statute of limitations means the lapse of time upon which claims of certain type are no longer actionable. Thus, you would only be able to recover the fees of the latest 6 years except for this year's lease, since your current lease no longer specifies that the landlord will cover that cost. For more information on small claims courts, see chapter 799 of the Wisconsin statutory law.