Hi everyone
I have been putting in my lease that after the fifth of the month there will be a 150.00 fee for being late, then a 150.00 a day fee until paid in full, is this legal the rent’s are about 1200.00
thanks
Every jurisdiction has its own laws and regulations, but my instincts are, “Good luck with that!”
If you assess that hefty a penalty and then have to go to L&T court to collect, the judge is going to release the hounds of Hell on you.
That may violate the laws in quite a few states. That’s 12.5% PER DAY!!! If you went to court to evict this tenant you’d be lucky to not get charged with something yourself plus end up with a tossed out eviction. I would definitely not shy away from late fees if they are legal but I think yours would scare off many good tenants.
Uh ya… you’re setting yourself up for having your entire lease agreement thrown out of court. I’m not even your resident and I’m a little offended at such a high number. What is the purpose of such a stiff penalty anyway? If they couldn’t make the 1st 1200 on time, what makes you think they would be able to pay more than double the rent if they were two weeks late?
:shocked
I thought I was strict. We say rent is due on the 1st. Everyday that it is late is 10.00 per day up to the 15th. If not paid by the 15th they agree in the lease that it’s an automatic termination of the lease and they agree to be out by the 30th of the month.
We also have a clause that states that they agree to pay any and all fees associated with collecting a debt, including court costs and potential collection agency fees.
Everyday that it is late is 10.00 per day up to the 15th. If not paid by the 15th they agree in the lease that it's an automatic termination of the lease and they agree to be out by the 30th of the month.Is that legal and enforcable? Have you had that hold up in court? What state are you in? If they do leave by the 30th do you go after them for the rent plus late fees or do you just let them go and be happy that you didn't have to go through a formal eviction? Do your tenants typically abide by that when they fail to pay?
We are in MN. We have had a lawyer look over our lease and said it is all legal. We actually got that idea from some other property owners we met. They have had that for quite a while on their lease and they actually have enforced it. They said they didn’t even have to go thru the eviction process, they just took a copy of the lease to the sheriff and was able to have them removed from the property since they had signed and agreed to it… It is even in very bold print on the agreement. They then went after them for the rent and 150.00 total late fee. If it was not collected they turned it over to a collections agency and the tenants were responsible for the fees due to the agency as well. We have not yet had to enforce any sort of eviction.
It does seem to make a huge difference. The tentants we have on the old lease are always late. It was only a 25.00 fine after the 10th of the month. All tenants we have since the new lease are either on time or if they have a problem that month they are on the phone on the 1st making arrangements with me as to how much they can pay and on what date they will have the rest. It’s not perfect, but much better that what we did have!
I have two different options depending on the credit score
1 Good credit 5% of rent and 5 dollars a day
2 not so good credit 10% of rent and 10 dollars a day
The idea of them calling to make arrangements on how much they can pay is a bad idea they pay 100% or get out. :bs
At 900 hundred a week you are setting them up to fail I think that is WRONG. :anon
At 150 dollars you will evict a good tenant just because he had a bad month :banghead
There was more b.s. on this thread than I’ve seen in a long time.
SAHM,
We are in MN. We have had a lawyer look over our lease and said it is all legal. We actually got that idea from some other property owners we met. They have had that for quite a while on their lease and they actually have enforced it. They said they didn't even have to go thru the eviction process, they just took a copy of the lease to the sheriff and was able to have them removed from the property since they had signed and agreed to it.. It is even in very bold print on the agreementIt only took me 1 minute to do a google search of the MN tenant-landlord laws.
Your lease is NONSENSE. You can not kick someone out in Minnesota without winning an unlawful detainer action in court and having a writ of removal from a judge. It only took me 1 minute to find that out by looking up the Minnesota Tenant Landlord Law on the web. I strongly suggest that you do the same. Ignorance of the law is no excuse in court. I suggest that you take your responsibility a little more seriously before you get run over by a savvy tenant. You can even be charged with a criminal offense for violating your duty as a landlord in the People’s Republic of MN!
Patat,
You didn’t say what state you are in, but I am relatively certain that you can not charge $150 and $150 per day! That just won’t fly in any state that I know of! You also better get better educated before you pay the price for your ignorance.
Many landlords go out of business because they don’t know how to deal with tenants. You two are on the fast track.
Mike
You guys are all spoiled. We have to deal with the fact you can’t charge a late fee until the rent is more than 30 days late. On top of that you can’t give a discount for early payment of rent disguised as a late fee.
If you did violate those laws, and went to court, you could be sued for triple damages plus attorney and court costs.
Another book I read said that one way to get people to pay on time is to offer a discount after a year if their rent was paid on time for the whole year. They were doing 10% off the first year, 25% the second year and the 3rd year the month was free. He did have it set up so that the rent went up 3-4% every year. I do tend not to raise the rent every year so I guess if you do it up front, the discount doesn’t hurt that much. Not sure how well this would work in my state as I can’t see that you could consider it a late penalty fee.
Speak of high rent fees, I did see one provision I liked which was the rent doubling at the end of the lease if they didn’t sign a new lease. Gives the tenant a nice incentive to sign a new lease, I’ve had a few that tended to drag their feet on that.
Propertymanger Back up please I agree with you 150 dollars is nuts maybe I did not make my self clear 10% of 600 dollars is 60 and 5 % is 30 I would not let a person with bad credit stay in a unit I charge 1200 for and 5% is only 60 bucks with a 5 day grace period.
Hope this helps sorry for the misunderstanding :beer
tworent,
Sorry! I put your name in my post, when patat was the one who said he did $150 + $150. My mistake and sorry again for not getting it right. I’ll change my original post.
Mike
Hi Everyone
alright so if the 150.00 a day is to high , how do you go about charging late fees, on my lease this has save me from doing alot of evactions because i say that i can charge them but i never do because this get them out when they see how much they would owe me, by the way i would never charge anyone this who is a good tenant and is only late once or twice. the state i live in is FL
so may ? is how would you charge a late fee on 1200.00 rent
along with using scare tactats so if need the tenant leaves quitly.
Thanks everyone
So you are going to pick and choose who the lease applies to? GOOD FREAKIN’ LUCK BUDDY!
patat,
I realize that you are brand new at this, but you are on the fast track to failure. Sorry for being so blunt, that that is the truth. You don’t understand the law in your state and you are violating the basics of being a good landlord.
The headline in our local paper today was “Local Landlord Sued by Civil Rights Commission”. That is what happens when you treat people unequally. Rich is absolutely right, if you want to stay in the rental business, you can’t treat one tenant one way and another tenant another way.
You need a lease that is LEGAL and enforceable in your state. Then, you need to enforce your lease. You can bluff a small percentage of non-paying tenants into leaving, but most know the law (clearly better than you do) and they will force you to evict them. When you get to court and the judge determines that your lease is crap and that you’re allowing some tenants to pay late (but not this one), YOUR’E IN BIG TROUBLE! If you’re lucky, your eviction will be laughed out of court and you’ll get to start over. If you’re not lucky, the tenant’s free legal aid lawyer will press charges against you and your short real estate career will be over.
I’m going to give the landlord from the headlines a call today. Their days as real estate investors are OVER! I’m guessing that they will do ANYTHING to get rid of their rental!!! Free apartment building anyone?
Mike
You’ve been told in this thread already what you need to do – you need to know what the applicable state/local laws are and then follow them…if you don’t know what the state/county/city dictate as far as late fees, you will certainly wind up in a “train wreck”!
http://www.reiclub.com/real-estate-property-codes.php
Keith
Hi Everyone :argue
I have been doing this for about 7 years, so i am not new at this and from the sounds of some of your remarks , maybe you should not give advice but you should ask for some. sounds like alot of you are always in court i have never went to court . Never needed to because of my late fees, I tought this was a open forum and some of the people on this site think that they have all the answer when in fact that don’t know any but how to put down people. so if you have nothing nice to say , well then dont say anything at all.
Does any one know a web site where i can get info on late fees for fl
Thanks for all your help
:rolleyes
and from the sounds of some of your remarks , maybe you should not give advice but you should ask for some. sounds like alot of you are always in court i have never went to court
patat,
I think you are right. Please educate me. I am in court a lot, in fact I average evicting 1% of the tenants each month. Should I charge $150 and $150 per day as a late fee, even though it would be laughed out of court? Should I treat my tenants differently? Do I understand that I wouldn’t really charge my “good” tenants this late fee, but I would charge my bad tenants this fee? Why should I accept these bad tenants? If I know they are bad tenants, why would i take them? What should I do when my illegal late fee doesn’t cause them to move voluntarily?
Please help.
Mike
p.s. you can probably find your state’s laws by doing a Google search of Florida tenant landlord laws.
If you need somewhere to check it out, why don’t take a look:
http://www.ag.state.mn.us/Consumer/housing/lt/LT_2.asp
No doubt you had a “large” penalty" written into the lease that may not be entirely legal. Most tenants sign them, but often does not check with an attorney regarding the legality of each and every item when they sign a lease.