Rejecting a partial rent payment ...

[Kazi R.]

I am looking at various online rent payment services in order to accept electronic rent payments from my tenants. So far I like Google Wallet and Chase QuickPay. I am in Georgia where a landlord cannot evict a tenant if a partial rent payment is accepted, so I need a service that allows me to reject a partial payment. Google Wallet allows returning money within 10 days from when it was initially sent. So my question is: if I return the rent money quickly, would that be the same as rejecting a payment in the eyes of an eviction judge? Thanks for your opinion on this.

Those of you who are curious about GA law regarding this, following text is directly from Georgia Landlord Tenant Handbook:

My tenant and I disagree over the amount of rent due this month. The tenant gave me a check for part of the rent. Should I cash the check?

If the landlord accepts partial rent he cannot then seek to dispossess or evict the tenant for failure to pay the monthly rent. If the tenant fails to pay the remaining amount of rent due, the landlord would have to sue the tenant for payment but could not dispossess or evict the tenant for nonpayment. A landlord’s acceptance of a tenant’s check for less than the full rental amount, does not release the tenant from having to pay the disputed amount. 

[Craig Rismiller]

@Kazi R. I am not sure with the legality of rejecting / returning partial rents in Georgia but with Chase Quickpay you need to "accept or "decline" the payment.  If you receive a partial payment you can simply just "decline" and tell the tenant to pay in full (though you may need to think about if this is a good strategy as evictions can be costly and most of the time you should try to work things out with the tenant).

We use Quickpay all the time and love it.