Rent Collection with COZY

[Kenneth Garrett]

I’m looking for an automatic rent payment solution.  I have used a couple of other vendors.  I here good things regarding COZY.  Please comment on your experiences both positive and negative.

[Jon A.]

I currently use cozy for rent collection and advertising my units and screening. It is easy to navigate and I don't even have to talk to my tenants. It has automatic late fees that can be added and a copy of the lease can be uploaded if you wish and can require and offer tenants renters insurance before accepting payments. For the most part, it makes my life easy. 

Now for the downside, even with express payout enabled on all of my units at about $3.00 per payment, the ACH process just takes way too long. I understand that this is just the banking system in general and all my tenants would rather process ACH payments instead of paying the fee for using a debit card, but in NC there is a 5 day grace period. So, if a tenant is running late and pays on the 5th of the month, and the 5th lands on a Saturday, and the ACH payment can take 3-4 business days to process then I don't receive payment until the 9th or 10th of the month, which means I have to float the mortgage in the meantime. Not a problem for everyone but it can be for me. 

Also, I had a tenant that claimed online fraudulent activity on their bank account. While the tenant had paid on time and the money had been deposited into my account, it was pulled back out of my account in the middle of the month per federal law. If that payment had been made any other way besides online, it would not have been given back to the tenant. Couple that event with the fact that the tenant was now behind on the rent and I had to file for eviction,it put me 3 months into a process that typically takes 30 days here in NC. Granted, I gave him too much time to settle the late rent because he was a vet and his benefits alone qualified him for the rental without even working, and I actually believed that online fraud was out of his control and his bank would honor his claim. Well, it took a few weeks before I started to understand that this wasn't going to happen. 

Lastly, a tenant can pay a partial payment on rent which can delay an eviction if one is needed. I may just go back to the way I used to do it, which is cash/check/ or money order in my mailbox by the 5th. What initially attracted me to Cozy was the tenant screening, but the last application I had took several days for the background check, which is too long in our environment where landlords don't even call each other about past residencies and some will just rent to people sight/unseen without any screening whatsoever. 

[Kenneth Garrett]

Thanks Jon for your detailed analysis.  I appreciate the feedback.