Your tenant's rent check bounced. Here is the legal cap on what you can charge them.

Published July 26, 2026

California caps a bounced check fee at $25 for the first one and $35 after that, and you cannot stack that fee with the separate treble damages remedy. Here is how the two paths actually work.

A tenant's rent check bounces, and California Civil Code section 1719 sets the ceiling on what you can add to the bill: no more than $25 for a payer's first bad check, no more than $35 for each one after. There is also a second option: a written demand for treble damages of $100 to $1,500. You cannot use both on the same check.

I bring this up because it is one of the first places an owner handling management directly trips. Not out of dishonesty, out of not knowing there is a number at all. A check bounces, the owner is annoyed and a little embarrassed to have to chase it, and a $50 or $75 "bounced check fee" gets typed into a lease addendum because it sounds about right. It is not about right. It is a specific number, in a specific statute, and a tenant's attorney or a small claims judge will know it even if the owner does not.

What the statute actually says

I pulled the current text of Civil Code section 1719 directly rather than work from memory, because this is exactly the kind of number that drifts in people's heads over the years. The statute sets a service charge payable to the payee, capped at $25 for the first check passed on insufficient funds and capped at $35 for each subsequent check.

That is the whole fee schedule. First bounced check from that particular payer, $25 cap. Every one after that from the same person, $35 cap. Not per year, not per lease term, per payer. If your tenant bounced one check eighteen months ago and bounces another one now, that second one is still a "subsequent check" from that payer and the $35 cap applies, not $25.

The other path: skip the fee, go after treble damages

The statute also gives you an alternative remedy that most owners managing on their own have never heard of. Instead of charging the small service fee, you can send the tenant a written demand for payment. If they do not pay within 30 days of that demand, you can then pursue damages of three times the check amount, with a floor and ceiling built in. The statute puts it this way:

"liable instead for the amount of the check...and damages equal to treble that amount, which shall not be less than one hundred dollars ($100) nor more than one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500)"

So on a $2,000 rent check, treble damages would be capped at $1,500, not $6,000. The floor matters more on a small check. On a $200 check, treble damages would technically be $600, but the statute would not let you go below $100 in any case, so that part rarely comes into play on checks around a typical rent amount.

The two remedies are exclusive of each other, and the statute says so directly:

"When a person becomes liable for treble damages for a check...that person shall no longer be liable for any service charge for that check and any costs to mail the written demand."

In plain terms, you charge the $25 or $35 fee and move on, or you send the formal demand letter and wait out the 30 day window for a shot at treble damages. You do not get to tack the fee onto the demand letter as a belt and suspenders move. Once you go the demand route, the fee is off the table for that check.

Why this trips up owners managing on their own

This is a small statute with an outsized consequence for how it reads to a tenant. A management company that has done this a hundred times charges $25, notes it in the ledger, and the conversation is over in a day. An owner managing without help who invents a number, even a reasonable sounding $50, has handed the tenant a legitimate complaint that has nothing to do with the late rent itself. Now the conversation is about your fee instead of their check, and if it ever gets in front of a small claims commissioner, that commissioner knows the $25 and $35 numbers cold. It is a bad way to lose credibility on a case where you were otherwise in the right.

The demand letter and treble damages path is even less forgiving of guesswork. It has a specific written notice requirement and a 30 day clock, and getting the form or the timing wrong can cost you the whole remedy, not just knock you down to the smaller fee.

What this means for your building

If a tenant's rent check bounces, decide up front which path you are on. For a first bounce from an otherwise reliable tenant, the $25 fee plus a normal late rent conversation is usually the right move, it is fast and it does not escalate a relationship you want to keep. For a tenant who is bouncing checks as a pattern, or where the amount is large enough that treble damages actually matter, the written demand path is worth doing correctly rather than improvising. Either way, put the actual statutory number in your lease's NSF clause instead of a round number that feels fair. It already is the fair number, it is just not one most people know to look up.

Common questions

Can I charge more than $35 for a bounced rent check in California? No. Civil Code 1719 caps the service charge at $25 for a payer's first bad check and $35 for each one after that from the same payer, regardless of what your lease says. Confirm your lease language with a licensed professional.

Can I charge the NSF fee and also sue for treble damages on the same check? No. The statute is explicit that once you pursue treble damages through the written demand process, you give up the right to the service charge on that same check.

What has to happen before I can seek treble damages instead of the fee? You send a written demand for the check amount. If the tenant has not paid within 30 days, you can then pursue damages of three times the check amount, capped between $100 and $1,500.

Last verified: July 25, 2026. Quotes are from the current text of California Civil Code section 1719 as published at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. This is general information for property owners, not legal advice. Confirm your specific lease language and any demand letter process with a licensed professional before acting.

Kellie

Schofield Properties

323 Richmond Street, El Segundo, CA 90245

Topics: self-management, legal, south-bay

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Schofield Properties is a family run property management company at 323 Richmond St, El Segundo, CA 90245. We have managed the South Bay since 1972 and personally oversee about 186 doors today. Book a call to talk about your property.