how do you collect your rent ?

Question

For all the landlords - I have a word of caution for you. Avoid using online services like Cozy for your deposits and rental payments. They have the ability to withdraw funds as desired by tenant. I found the hard way, the deposits made by these services can be removed without your approval. They only provide FYI emails -saying something like - we are removing the funds we deposited into your bank. You, as a landlord have no ability to stop this action, neither via your bank nor via this service.

Looking to learn other experiences on how other landlords are collecting rent.

Account Closed · Answer

Making sure rent was received in my office on or before the 1st of the month was the Tenants responsibility.  Whether they paid by carrier pigeon, a drone, or however they chose to send it and deliver it to me, was on them.  But it had to be in my office on or before the 1st of the month.

When I had rented to someone they had to have decent credit, been employed at least a year, and be COLLECTIBLE !!!  That is the main word here....COLLECTIBLE

By checking their credit report history, it told me what type of Character they had, by how they paid their bills.   How many bills were past due.  It told me just about everything I needed to know including whether or not they had any evictions.

Since I chose applicants that were DEPENDABLE people,  I never had a problem with receiving my rents in my office on time.

Now would I go and send out a bounty hunter to collect my rents from them? Of course not. However, I had something better than a "Bounty Hunter". I had a 7 day Notice to Quit for non payment of rent.   There is nothing more annoying, and fearful then receiving a Notice to Quit.  (It's like having a real live Clint Eastwood saying, "go ahead make my day. Do ya feel lucky?  Well do ya punk?)   Just kidding.  Too may Clint Eastwood movies lately.  But they are annoying, but it is necessary.

You see the Notice to Quit is just a notice and nothing more UNLESS the tenant doesn't pay their rent.  It is when you have to file that Notice to Quit in a court of law that it becomes a legal document for eviction.  Up until that time, it's just a notice, and I let my tenants know that.  They know that if their rent isn't in my office on or before the 1st of the month, then on the 2nd of the month they will receive a 7 Day Notice to Quit  !!!

An eviction can't even be started until you send your tenant a Notice to Quit.  And since evictions take a LOOOOOONG time, time is of the essence,  and it is important to start the process NOW!  The very first day rent is late.

Would my tenants get upset to receive a Notice To Quit?  Yep they did.  But they hated it so much that in order not to receive one, they usually paid me a few days a head of time.

Now, if I were a scum landlord who never fixed anything and my houses were junk, they may have given me problems, but I was a good landlord.  (I'm retired now) and I took care of them and my buildings 100%).

Remember our tenants are not children, even though some may act that way.  Heck, sometimes I act that way.  But I never went out of my way to collect my rents (and I had 40 rental units which ranged from apartments to multi-families, duplexes, and mostly single family homes. I refused to do it.  Instead I solved the problems with a Notice to Quit and life was good.

Nathan Ku · Answer

@Thomas S.

@Michael Bertsch

@Leighton Adams

@Samantha Klein Account Closed - Thanks all for your inputs

Jeff Gates · Answer

Why is this different than a bounced check?

Are you saying no tenant can give you a check and when you deposit it, the bank returns it since there is not sufficient funds?

Thomas S. · Answer

I am old school. My tenants provide me with post dated checks. NSFs are extremely rare and I don't have to wonder if I am receiving my payments on time.

This of course is limited to being small time. With only 30+ doors and considering the majority of my tenants are senior citizens.

Leighton Adams · Answer

I too have set up a rent collection only bank account and instructed tenants to direct deposit.  This has a fatal flaw, however, in that clever tenant's can invalidate pay or quit notices, by paying as little as $1 into the account subsequent to a notice. Haven't had a tenant do that ... yet.

Steve S. · Answer

i use paypal

works like a charm and it's free

Samantha Klein · Answer

I set up a rent collection only bank account and gave instructions to all tenants that they need to deposit their rent at the bank and text me that they did. It saves me time going to the bank multiple times to deposit checks.

Jordann B. · Answer

Hi @Nathan Ku -- Jordann from Cozy Support here! I apologize for any confusion around what happens when a payment has failed. Part 6 of our terms mentions information about how payments are processed if a payor or payor’s bank or card issuer initiates a reversal, chargeback, or dispute of a payment made to you.

If you go to our homepage and scroll to the bottom, you can click on Terms of Use if you’d like to review that as well. I hope that helps, but if you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to our support team and we’ll be glad to help!

Allan Rosso · Answer

Hey @Nathan Ku, I have the same bank as my tenants, so we linked our accounts together to where they can transfer money straight into my account as they would between their own accounts, but don't have the "rights" to withdraw money. You may still be able to do it even if you don't have the same bank. I think that's something worth looking into.

how do you collect your rent ?

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