Accepting Rents

[David Roberts]

I was just going through one of the How To Guides and it came to the topic of accepting rent.

It suggests not to take cash or personal checks, especially at first and only accept certified funds.  I have 1 rental with the same tenants for the past 4 years who have paid me by personal check every month, so there's no way I'm going to change that now as they've proven themselves (and I got lucky).

But moving forward, I would like to get away from that for future rentals.  Money Orders I believe are only good for up to 500, and the rent I will be charging on my next rental will be around 1k a month.  Certified checks these days are getting ridiculous in price (over 10 bucks at my bank).

So, I guess now that most everyone is going to electronic payment, can I set up electronic payment free of cost through Bank of America checking?  Can I give out a checking account number (and routing number I think) to the tenants?  I want to find a method that is free for everybody, and I'm also local.

I really don't do many electronic transactions personally besides paying credit cards and such.  I have never had someone pay me money to my account.  So I don't know if it's that simple, giving out my account information and having the tenant pay me as if they are doing bill pay from their account at their bank.   Is there an associated fee or is?

[Kyle M.]

Typically your tenant would set up a "person to person transfer" taking the funds directly from their account to yours.  Your bank would be able to direct you on the exact form to give your tenant so that they can transfer funds to your account without giving away personal info.  I also don't see a reason that there would be fees, especially on the receiving end.