Late Payment Fee Recommendation

[Ramon Purifoy]

I have a rental where we have tenants who have paid on time for the last year. We use a rent system that is due on the first and late on the 5th method. We have student tenants who choose internally to split payment. Half was paid on time but the other half was not. When I contacted them on the 10th, they immediately paid the remainder and apologized, but were concerned about the late fee. It is in the lease that a late fee of $300 is assessed after the 5th. I was curious if anyone had opinions on leniency since they are typically good tenants. My considerations:

1. Pay the whole late fee immediately. No remorse.

2. I can't remove the late fee, but I can give them until the next rent payment to pay it in full.

3. Reduce the late fee to $100 as a one-time good faith reduction.

4. Remove the late fee as a one-time forgiveness.

I am leaning towards option 3 as they have been good renters overall, but I've read and listened enough to know that I do not want to compromise my lease/future payments. People usually bring up other real world examples and I have personally had late fees removed when I had just forgotten about a payment or something did not go through (granted those were usually $10-25).

What would you choose?

[Max T.]

3 in exchange for no more split payments. Let them handle the accounting. "I accept one check for the full rent amount "