Not properly notified of late rent 4 months in a row...now fees!

[Haylee Limbean]

I live in Oregon. I received a letter from my apartment manager with a bill for 4 consecutive month's worth of late rent fees, totaling over $300. I had no idea my checks were being received late, and have chalked it up to a very laggy mail system (it shouldn't take over a week to deliver an envelope less than 10 miles away). If I had been notified of the 1st late rent offence, I would have began mailing my checks much sooner or delivering them in person and nipped the whole problem in the bud right away. However, I was completely unaware of any issue, and receiving a bill 4 months later looks very seedy to me.

I've been in regular contact with the apartment manager about this and he even admitted that they "need to work on a better communication procedure for things like this", but that it's ultimately not their fault because the checks late, bottom line.

I tried to play hard ball by paying 1 one of the fees (because I only received 1 letter of notification from them), but they still won't take the other 3 fees off my account.

Any advice is much appreciated!