What Counts as "Rent" in a Maryland FTPR Case? What You Can (and Can't) Claim on DC-CV-082

Maryland rent court answers one question: did the tenant fail to pay rent? Not fees. Not utilities. Not the balance your accounting software shows under "total due." Rent.

For years, leases blurred that line with "additional rent" clauses that folded utilities, fees, and penalties into the rent column. In March 2024 the Supreme Court of Maryland ended the practice, and District Court judges now police the number on DC-CV-082 more closely than any other field. Claim the wrong things and the best case is a reduced judgment. The common case is dismissal.

Here is exactly what belongs in a Failure to Pay Rent claim, what doesn't, and why the difference decides cases.

Rent is the fixed, periodic payment for use or occupancy of the premises. Everything else is a different debt with a different remedy, no matter what the lease calls it.

Where the Definition Comes From

Real Property § 8-401, Maryland's summary ejectment statute, lets a landlord repossess when the tenant "fails to pay rent when due and payable." The statute never defines rent, and for decades landlords and tenants fought over the gap.

The Supreme Court of Maryland closed it in Westminster Management, LLC v. Smith (No. 4, Sept. Term 2023, opinion filed March 25, 2024). The holdings that matter to every residential landlord in the state:

1. "Rent" under § 8-401 means the fixed, periodic payments a tenant is required to make for use or occupancy of the premises. The base rent. Not the various other sums a tenant may owe the landlord from time to time, "even if the lease characterizes them as 'deemed rent' or 'additional rent.'"
2. Lease allocation clauses can't manufacture an eviction. A provision that applies the tenant's payment to fees or other charges first, leaving "rent" unpaid and the tenant exposed to summary ejectment, violates RP § 8-208(d)(2).
3. The 5% late fee cap is all-inclusive. Penalties for late payment, capped at 5% of the monthly rent due, swallow any other collection charges except costs the court itself awards.

Your lease cannot draft around any of this. The definition is statutory, as interpreted by the state's highest court, and it controls what the District Court can do regardless of what the tenant signed.

What You CAN Claim on DC-CV-082

Three categories, and only three:

1. Base rent through the filing date

The contract rent for each unpaid period, summed, minus every payment received, through the date you file. Not the amount on your 10-day notice: if the tenant paid $400 during the notice window, the complaint amount drops $400. The number must reconcile to a chronological rent ledger, because that ledger is the exhibit the judge will read.

2. Late fees, if the lease authorizes them, capped at 5%

Two conditions, both mandatory. First, the lease must actually provide for late fees: no clause, no fee. Second, the fee cannot exceed 5% of the monthly rent due: $1,600 rent supports at most an $80 late fee per late month. The cap is absolute and inclusive of collection costs, so "$80 plus a $25 processing fee" is an over-claim. The full mechanics are in Maryland's 5% Late Fee Cap.

3. Court costs, as awarded

The filing fee and allowable costs of the suit get added to the judgment if you prevail. You request them in the prayer for relief on DC-CV-082; the court awards them. They are never folded into the rent claim itself. In residential cases that is the end of the list: attorney's fees are recoverable only in nonresidential summary ejectment where the lease provides for them.

What You CANNOT Claim (Even If the Lease Says Otherwise)

• Utilities and utility reimbursements. Water, gas, electric, trash, RUBS allocations, submeter charges. After Westminster, labeling them "additional rent" changes nothing in a residential FTPR. And § 8-401 separately requires the court to deduct any utility bills, fees, or security deposits the tenant paid to the utility under Public Utilities Article § 7-309, which happens when a landlord's own utility account faces termination.
• Administrative, amenity, and processing fees. Parking, pet rent labeled as a fee, month-to-month surcharges styled as penalties, "lease violation fees." Different debt, different remedy.
• Security deposit installments. A deposit is security, not rent. See the Maryland security deposit guide.
• Damage and repair charges. Mid-tenancy chargebacks for a broken window are a contract claim, not rent.
• Attorney's fees in residential cases, full stop.
• Late fees beyond 5%, including stacked daily fees and collection add-ons.

None of these debts evaporate. You can pursue them in a small claim, deduct qualifying items from the security deposit at move-out, or recover them under the lease after the tenancy ends. What you cannot do is use the eviction docket as the collection tool for them.

Why Over-Claiming Gets Cases Dismissed

Judges in Baltimore City and across the state see the same inflated claims daily, and the consequences escalate:

1. Reduction from the bench. The court strikes non-rent items and over-cap late fees, and enters judgment for the corrected figure. You lose credibility and any amount the tenant already matched.
2. Dismissal when the over-claim is material. If stripping the improper items drops the true arrears to or below what the tenant paid or tendered, there is no failure to pay rent, and the case is gone. Refile means a fresh notice, a fresh filing fee, and 3-6 more weeks of occupancy.
3. A poisoned notice. The 10-day Notice of Intent (DC-CV-115) states the rent due. A notice demanding utilities and fees as rent is a defective notice, and defective notice is Maryland's leading FTPR dismissal cause. The whole sequence, from notice through DC-CV-082, has to carry the same clean number.
4. Exposure beyond the case. Westminster was a class action. Systematically collecting non-rent sums through rent court is the fact pattern that turns one dismissal into a lawsuit against you.

A Worked Example

Tenant rents at $1,500/month, lease authorizes a 5% late fee, and the lease bills back $60/month for water "as additional rent." The tenant missed June and July and paid $500 on July 10.

Wrong claim: $1,500 + $1,500 + $150 late fees (two months at a flat $75... so far so good) + $120 water + $35 "collection fee" − $500 = $2,805. The water and collection fee are not rent or awardable fees. A judge who catches it strikes $155 and starts asking what else is inflated.

Right claim: $1,500 + $1,500 + $75 + $75 − $500 = $2,650, with court costs requested separately in the prayer for relief. The $120 of water stays on the tenant's account as a contract debt for small claims or move-out reconciliation.

The $155 difference is not worth your case. It never is.

Commercial Leases Are Different

Westminster's rent definition addressed residential leases. Nonresidential summary ejectment still allows the court to award reasonable attorney's fees where the lease authorizes them, and commercial "additional rent" structures (CAM, taxes, insurance) are evaluated differently. If you hold commercial units, don't import residential rules, and don't export commercial lease language into your residential templates.

The Pre-Filing Checklist

• Ledger applies every payment to rent first
• Claim = base rent only, through the filing date
• Late fees ≤ 5% of monthly rent, authorized by the lease, no add-ons
• No utilities, fees, deposits, damages, or attorney's fees in the claim
• 10-day notice amount and DC-CV-082 amount reconcile (net of payments since notice)
• Non-rent debts tracked separately for small claims or deposit reconciliation

Related reading:

• Maryland's 5% Late Fee Cap: What Landlords Can Actually Charge
• How to Fill Out DC-CV-082: A Field-by-Field Maryland Filing Guide
• The Rent Ledger That Wins in Maryland Rent Court
• Maryland's Tenants' Bill of Rights: Landlord Compliance Guide
• The Maryland FTPR Process, Step by Step

Every clean FTPR claim starts with a clean 10-day notice stating the right rent figure: