# Requirement change

Legal have looked at our fines and they are not happy. Somebody kept a paperback for two years and
we billed them more than the shop charges for a new one, and we cannot defend that.

**A fine never grows past what it would cost us to replace the book.** Keep charging fifty a day,
but stop when the total reaches the replacement cost on the catalogue card. Clean Code costs us 4500
to replace, so ninety days late is 4500 and so is nine hundred days late.

A few things I want to be clear about, because they have caught us out before:

- **The ceiling is the book's, not the library's.** Each title has its own replacement cost — the
  dictionary is 25000 — and a fine stops at the cost of the book that was late, not at some single
  figure for the whole library.
- **We still count the days.** The receipt says how late the book actually was, even when the charge
  has stopped growing. Two hundred days late is two hundred days late; it just costs 4500.
- **The cap is per late return.** Somebody who brings two books back two hundred days late owes two
  ceilings, not one. We are limiting what one late book can cost, not what one member can owe.
- **A capped fine is still owed in full**, and it still stops them borrowing while it is over five
  hundred. We are capping the charge, not forgiving it.
- Nothing else moves. Same loan period, same fifty a day below the ceiling, same blocking threshold,
  same refusals, same catalogue. A return is still always accepted.
