How to deal with tenant late on reimbursing $50 utility payment

[Kimberly H.]

The LLC I manage owns a townhouse that we just acquired this year and rented for the first time this May.

It is in Cook County, Il.

Two employees of the waste removal company gave me bad info before we rented this unit. Long story short, in this town the landlord is responsible for the trash bill unless the tenant signs up for autopay; the only way a tenant can pay is via autopay, they can’t just receive paper bills and then send in checks.

July 23rd I explained that via email to the tenant, asked the tenant to pay me the $50 for the incurred charges so far that the LLC just paid, and instructed her to sign up for autopay. No response; previously she has been very responsive via email.Emailed again 2 weeks later, she responded that day, apologized, says she signed up for autopay (I confirmed with the waste company that she did) and she says the $50 is now in the mail to me and to let her know if I didn't get it. I never got it and informed her of such three times,2 via email and 1 voicemail now with no response.

In the meantime, I have cashed two postdated rent checks from her that I received at lease signing with no problems. I was last at the property just a couple months ago; we had some water come in a basement window, and before that water on the floor from a full lint sock, I tell all my tenants that if you see a drip of water out of place to call, and both times she called asap to let us know of the issues and we took care of them asap.

I have re-informed her of the terms of the lease via my latest email and voicemail: utility payments are considered rent, and when overdue late charges will apply, which are $25 once late as of the 5th of the month, this month, then $5 each addl day. I suggesting in my vmail yesterday that she drop it off since the first check got lost in the mail.

So, I understand all about training your tenant. Not sure what to do in this case. Do I send a 5 day notice over $50 if I don’t get it by the 5th? If so, how far do I take it? Doing an eviction in Cook County over $50 would be insane, but I don’t want to badly train my tenant either. Given her personal situation and that she has a sister and parents living in the same town, she will probably be a tenant who would want to stay put for years.

This is a year lease, and this property is in Cook County, not Texas, so if I did evict it would cost an arm and a leg, take 4-5 months, would have to be done via at attorney since this is an LLC, and the courthouse could be as far as downtown Chicago which is a 3 hr drive round trip in traffic from my house, which puts me at January/February and I've heard no sheriff puts someone on the street then anyway. I think only a crazy person would start an eviction over $50, and unless my tenant is an idiot, she or her parents and sister who also reside in the same town probably know that as well. I do have a substantial security deposit, and a *previous* landlord apartment building, not where she was living when I accepted her application, said she was a good on-time paying tenant who got her entire security deposit back, and I did spend 45 minutes at lease signing reviewing the terms of the lease.

I did read the entire ,”Would you start eviction over $50? $160?” BP post.

What would you do?