Your lease or rental agreement should spell out your landlord's key rent rules, including:
State laws in Arkansas cover several of these rent-related issues, including the amount of notice a landlord must provide to increase rent under a month-to-month tenancy, and how much time a tenant has to pay rent or move before a landlord can file for eviction.
Rent is legally due on the date specified in your lease or rental agreement (usually the first of the month). Arkansas state law does not address late fees, so Arkansas landlords can charge a reasonable late fee if its terms are laid out in a written lease or rental agreement. If your lease or rental agreement doesn't say anything about late fees, your landlord can't impose one, no matter how reasonable it is.
Arkansas does not have a state statute on the amount of notice the landlord must provide tenants in order to increase the rent or change other terms of a month-to-month rental agreement. Unless your rental agreement specifies otherwise, the landlord must typically provide the same amount of notice to change the rent or another term of the tenancy as state law requires the landlord to provide when ending the tenancy—in this case, 30 days. Keep in mind that if you have a long-term lease, the landlord can't increase the rent until the lease ends and a new tenancy begins—unless the lease itself provides for an increase.
Arkansas landlords may not raise the rent in a discriminatory manner—for example, only for members of a certain race. Also, Arkansas landlords may not use a rent increase in retaliation against you for exercising a legal right—for example, in response to your legitimate complaint to a local housing agency about a broken heater.
Landlords must follow specific rules and procedures for ending a tenancy when a tenant has not paid the rent. Arkansas landlords can use unconditional quit notices to terminate a tenancy for nonpayment of rent—this means that the landlord doesn't have to give the tenant a second chance to pay rent.
Arkansas has two ways for landlords to evict a tenant who doesn't pay rent: a civil process called "unlawful detainer" and a criminal process called "failure to vacate." The unlawful detainer process is used more often than failure to vacate.
For an overview of landlord-tenant laws in Arkansas, see Overview of Landlord-Tenant Laws in Arkansas.
See the Laws and Legal Research section of Nolo for advice on finding and reading statutes and court decisions.
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