Using Cozy and implementing RUBS

[Marc Izquierdo]

Hi everyone

I am currently managing my duplexes using RUBS for water and sewer.  I do the math each month and send my tenants a “rental invoice” which includes how much they owe in billed back utilities plus their base rent.  Obviously each month, the total amount due for rent changes based on their water and sewer bills.  

I use Cozy to manage these properties.  I put their base rent into Cozy and it automatically charges the tenants that base amount each month.  I also add a bill into Cozy for their utility payment.  So on the first of the month, the tenant pays the recurring base rent and the manually entered one time payment for their utility bills.

My concern is about partial payment of rent.  I don’t like to accept partial payment.  I want all or nothing just incase I have to evict.  I don’t want partial payment to muddy the water.

What if a situation occurred where the tenant paid the recurring base rent but not their utilities in Cozy?  In that case they haven’t paid their full rent amount and I can post my notice to pay or vacate but I accepted partial payment.  Are they entitled to the time to live in the property that they paid for?  I would like to avoid this hairy situation in the future but cant figure out a way in Cozy to have the full amount (base rent + RUBS) as an all or nothing payment.

I was thinking about making their recurring rent $1.00 in Cozy (can’t make it zero), and each month manually inputting the full amount (minus $1.00).  

I was interested if anyone else had this issue and what you have done to combat it?

[Sharon Rosendahl]

I asked Cozy if I could deny partial rent automatically. They told me they can't do this right now but are thinking of adding it in an upgrade since it comes up a lot. So as of now, you tenant can still just pay you part of the rent no matter what the amount due is.

The only thing I can think of is to manually adjust their rent amount every month. I'm not sure you can do that. Ask Cozy, they have been good about answering my questions. Maybe they have a way to do this.