Late Payments by Tenants

[David Ferrette]

For all of the professional property managers out there, if a tenant is often late on rent by a few days but they don't mind paying the late fees, do you threaten them with an eviction or just collect the extra cash?  They just renewed their second year and I would say they are late every 3 or 4 months.

[Account Closed]

When a tenant is allowed to pay late on a fairly regular basis, the due date legally changes.  The acceptance of late rent is considered a waiver of the late rent clause.

So, it depends on if you care about that, really.  But, if they're only late every 3 or 4 months by only a few days, that's only 3 or 4 times a year.  Not perfect, but not horrible.  And the late fees are profit, I would assume?

I wouldn't evict them over it.  You can reestablish the due date by giving them 30 days notice that it won't be tolerated anymore.  Then you can evict them if they don't pay on time after that.  Or, rather, serve them with a 3 day notice to pay or quit (or whatever the deal is where you live).  At which point they will just pay.  

And if you have to pay the PM extra to serve that 3 day notice, it probably would be better to just let them keep paying late fees LOL.

If that's your only real problem with these tenants, I'd keep them.  Getting rid of tenants and getting new ones, also costs money in extra fees with your PM, let alone lost rent and turnover costs like painting and cleaning.