My landlord will not accept my late fee payment and has passed on to attorney

Our landlord has been adding late fees to our monthly rent and has compounded the fees even though we have paid full rent each month. In other words, she has applied earlier late fees as a non-payment of rent and added additional late fees. She has also been adding interest on previous month's late fees. Our lease mentions the late fee disclosure, but in no way claims she can use them as non-payment of later rent due. Last month (Dec. 2012), she disclosed in an email, that due for that month was a total of $1795, in which we paid $1600. The outstanding balance we were unable to pay, ($195), was increased a few days ago to $596 without verbal or written warning. She has now submitted this dispute to her owner's attorney, even though we offered to settle the outstanding fees one day late after a 3-day notice. We have researched this online and have seen numerous statements mentioning she cannot do this, yet she will now not accept our settlement of the inflated and/or compounded $596 fee