A landlord can charge a tenant for legal fees only when the lease contains an attorney’s fees clause or a specific state statute authorizes it. Without one of those two triggers, the default in the United States is that each side pays its own lawyer, win or lose. So the real answer for any given tenant depends on three things: what the lease says, who wins, and which state’s rules apply.
The Starting Point: Each Side Pays Its Own Lawyer
American courts follow the “American Rule.” Unless a contract or statute says otherwise, every party in a lawsuit pays their own legal costs. A landlord who sues a tenant and wins does not automatically get reimbursed for attorney fees just because the court ruled in their favor. Same in reverse. This is the baseline, and everything below is an exception to it.
Because of that baseline, a landlord who wants to shift legal costs to a tenant needs a specific mechanism, and that mechanism almost always starts with the lease.
How a Lease Clause Changes That
Most landlords who recover legal fees rely on an attorney’s fees clause written into the lease. A typical version reads something like: “In any legal action to enforce this lease, the prevailing party is entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs from the other party.” Signing a lease with that language is a contractual agreement to pay the landlord’s legal costs if the landlord wins a lawsuit arising from the lease.
The clause functions as a deterrent. A tenant who knows they could owe thousands of dollars in the landlord’s legal fees has a strong incentive to comply or settle before court. Without such a clause, a landlord who wins an eviction or breach-of-lease case usually walks away paying their own attorney and recovering only the underlying rent or damages.
When the Clause Actually Kicks In
An attorney’s fees clause almost always requires a formal court action before it applies. A landlord who hires a lawyer to draft a demand letter or a notice to vacate generally cannot bill the tenant for that cost under the clause, because no lawsuit has been filed. Some landlords try to add “administrative fees” for preparing eviction notices, but most states treat those charges as improper unless the lease specifically allows them.
The most frequent trigger is an eviction lawsuit. When a tenant stops paying rent or violates a major lease term, the landlord files a court action to regain possession. If the lease has a fee clause and the landlord prevails, the court can add the landlord’s attorney fees to the judgment. The tenant then owes back rent plus the cost of the legal proceedings.
Property damage beyond the security deposit is another common trigger. If a tenant leaves damage that costs more to repair than the deposit covers, the landlord may sue for the difference, and a fee clause can tack the attorney costs onto that judgment. A dispute that starts as a few hundred dollars in damage can become a significantly larger obligation.
Limits on What a Landlord Can Actually Recover
Even with an attorney’s fees clause, courts do not hand landlords a blank check. Several layers of protection limit the recovery.
Prevailing Party Requirement
Most enforceable fee clauses require the landlord to be the “prevailing party,” meaning a court must enter a judgment in the landlord’s favor. If the tenant wins, or the case is dismissed, the landlord collects nothing in legal fees. Under the standard from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Buckhannon Board & Care Home v. West Virginia Department of Health, a party prevails when a court enters an enforceable judgment on the merits or enforces a settlement through a consent decree.1GovInfo. Heard v. St. Luke’s Hospital – Memorandum Opinion Filing a lawsuit that pressures a tenant into compliance is not enough.
Reasonableness
Judges do not rubber-stamp whatever amount a landlord’s attorney bills. They evaluate whether the fees were reasonable based on the complexity of the case, hours spent, the attorney’s hourly rate compared to local norms, and the amount at stake. A landlord who runs up $8,000 in legal bills to collect $1,500 in unpaid rent will have a hard time convincing a judge that every dollar was necessary. Courts routinely reduce fee awards when hours look inflated or billing rates are out of step with the local market.
One-Sided Clauses
A clause that only lets the landlord recover fees, never the tenant, draws scrutiny. Courts look at whether the tenant had real bargaining power at signing and whether the terms are unreasonably tilted. A provision requiring a tenant to pay the landlord’s fees when the tenant sues over the landlord’s own default has been found unconscionable and unenforceable, because it would discourage tenants from asserting legitimate rights. Some jurisdictions prohibit attorney fee clauses in residential leases altogether.
Court Costs Are a Separate Category
Attorney fees and court costs follow completely different rules, and confusing them is a common mistake. Attorney fees are what you pay a lawyer for their time. Court costs are the expenses of running the case through the system: filing fees, process server charges, transcript costs, and similar items.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1920 – Taxation of Costs
Under federal rules and most state procedural codes, court costs are presumptively awarded to the prevailing party regardless of what the lease says.3Legal Information Institute. Rule 54 – Judgment; Costs A landlord who wins an eviction can usually recover filing fees and service costs even without an attorney’s fees clause. Court costs tend to be modest, often a few hundred dollars total. Attorney fees can run from around $500 for a straightforward, uncontested eviction to $5,000 or more for cases involving hearings, motions, and trial.
What Happens If the Case Settles
Most landlord-tenant disputes never reach a final judgment. Cases settle, tenants move out voluntarily, or landlords drop the action after receiving partial payment. A fee clause tied to a prevailing party standard generally requires an actual court judgment or a court-approved consent decree before either side can claim fees. An informal settlement where the tenant agrees to leave and the landlord agrees to drop the case usually means neither party prevailed in the legal sense, and neither can recover attorney fees.
That matters during negotiations. A landlord who demands reimbursement for attorney fees as part of a settlement is asking for something they might not get if the case went to judgment. A tenant has room to push back on that demand, especially when the outcome is uncertain.
Can a Landlord Take Legal Fees Out of the Security Deposit
Usually no. In most states, security deposits can only be applied to specific categories: unpaid rent, cleaning costs, and damage beyond normal wear and tear. Attorney fees are generally not on that list unless the lease explicitly includes them as a permissible deduction and state law does not prohibit it. A landlord who deducts legal fees from a deposit without clear authority to do so risks penalties, including having to pay the tenant’s attorney fees for wrongful withholding.
If a landlord is threatening to keep your deposit to cover legal expenses from a prior dispute, check your state’s security deposit statute. The permitted deductions are usually listed with specificity, and attorney fees rarely make the cut.
When You Can Charge the Landlord Instead
Fee-shifting is not one-way, and tenants who don’t realize that leave money on the table.
Reciprocal Fee Statutes
Many states have laws that automatically make any attorney’s fees clause in a lease mutual, even if the clause itself only mentions the landlord’s right to recover. If the lease says the landlord can collect fees when the landlord prevails, the statute grants the tenant the identical right when the tenant prevails. The landlord cannot draft around it. Some states go further, requiring that any fee-shifting clause in a rental agreement award fees only to the prevailing party and only after a court determines the amount is reasonable.
Statutory Fee-Shifting for Landlord Misconduct
Separate from the lease, many state landlord-tenant laws include built-in fee-shifting that protects tenants. The most common example is security deposits: in a significant number of states, a landlord who withholds a deposit in bad faith can be ordered to pay the tenant’s attorney fees as a penalty, sometimes along with double or triple the withheld amount. Other statutory triggers include illegal lockouts, retaliatory evictions, and failure to maintain habitable conditions. These provisions exist because tenants otherwise could not afford to enforce their rights against a landlord who knows the cost of litigation exceeds what the tenant stands to recover.
Before You Sign, and What to Do If You’re Already in a Dispute
The cheapest time to deal with an attorney’s fees clause is before signing. Read it carefully. If it only entitles the landlord to recover fees, ask to make it reciprocal. Even in competitive rental markets, striking or modifying a one-sided fee clause is one of the more reasonable requests you can make, since courts are already skeptical of those provisions.
If the landlord won’t budge, check whether your state has a reciprocal-fee statute that would override the one-sided language anyway. Many do. And if you’re already past signing and facing a dispute, remember that the clause does not entitle the landlord to unlimited fees. A judge will scrutinize the amount, you may have reciprocal rights, and a landlord who loses could end up paying your fees instead.