[quote=flu][quote=TenaciousSD]+1 for what Flu said in both of his posts
You can charge whatever fee’s you want (if residents are willing to pay it). For example, late fee’s. This doesn’t mean the resident has to pay them. If you go to court over late fee’s, the judge will NOT rule in your favor.[/quote]
When I was looking for a tenant, one prospective tenant insisted that my grace period was too short (3 business days versus other doing 5 days) and that the late fee of 6% was higher than others (5%)… I immediately said, well, you’re not planning to be late are you? Why can’t you just mail the check a week earlier, or use bill pay…. Dead silence…To me, that was a red flag right there…I never called the person back….
FWIW: I’ve never collected any late fees from my tenants, even if they were late unless they are egregiously late by a few weeks…But I do send out a reminder to tenant when they are late telling them to please review the contract about late fees… I do this to remind them, I’m cutting them some slack…which is more than a lot of creditors (like credit card companies do)…So the next time, a light bulb goes out, go buy your own light bulb and get it changed yourself.[/quote]
agree FLU, that was a big red flag.
as a tenant for 5 years, we didn’t pay too much attention to the late fee policy in the few leases we signed, simply because paying rent late was not even in our vocabulary.
