Originally posted by @Jeff Rabinowitz:
@Sam Leon, you are certainly within your rights to do this but it may cost you some good tenants. If someone did this to me for a minor offense I would be looking for a new place immediately. My lease is actually worded as you suggest but I have never applied it as you suggest.
It is rare for me to file for eviction and even rarer for me to apply multiple layers of charges. (I have many 3-5 year tenants. They do not usually move because of disputes with me but because their life situations change.) In court, I have had judges uphold most of the fees I have in the lease but they often modify my charges when I apply multiple fees. i.e. if I apply a tenant holdover fee and a late rent fee they will usually give me one but not the other. Granted, I live in a very tenant friendly State but I suspect many judges would frown upon turning a large late fee into an enormous late fee.
I think many of us apply rules on a case by case basis.
My lease is worded very strict, and I explain that in person to the tenant prior to them signing the lease that rules are rules and I take no pleasure in posting a notice of evict so best to avoid putting themselves in that situation.
When a new tenant is late I will let it go and send a reminder. A second time, I will apply a late fee, and if they do not pay the late fee, I will keep sending them invoices each month for the outstanding rent. Will I go ahead and evict? That depends. There comes a point I believe you no longer wish to keep the tenant.
First, I don't believe someone who can afford say $1800, $2500 a month of rent is going to structure to pay $100 of late fee. It's not a money issue but more of a **** this rule attitude. I do not like to send emails, texts, letters chasing and reminding people for rent, and certainly do not appreciate their attempt to test me to see if I would enforce my lease or not.
Last year one of my tenant broke a window. Didn't tell me but I found out when changing out an AC filter. Told me her daughter broke it. I told him he can fix it if it's cheaper for him (which is a courtesy to him), after several months no action, I had to hire someone to go fix it - my time, my money, and charged him the cost I paid which was $150. He refused to pay, said it shouldn't have been more than $50 to replace a piece of glass. That was 4 months prior to his lease being up. I debated to get rid of him for $150, he was given a chance to fix it himself, he didn't, I had to fix it, and sent him the invoice I paid. Up till that point he had two late rent occurrences which I ignored, which later I regret, because I believe my not enforcing the late payment lead indirectly to his tardiness to fix the window and refusal to pay for the repair. I didn't evict him because it was not too far from his lease being up. As predicted, the next few months he were late almost every month. Sometimes a few days, one time I took an oversea trip to London and he was 18 days past due before I sent him a reminder. I believe if I had enforced the late fees earlier it would not have escalated.
I just didn't ask him to renew, when it's 30 days from lease expiration I put a FOR RENT sign in the yard. He called immediately and asked to renew. I said no, it's not working out, he has been late, he didn't pay for the window repair, I don't have time to deal with this. He then asked for a conversion to month to month, I asked him how long would it take him to find a new place, he said 4 months. I said OK, I will do a renewal with him for 4 months, on the following conditions. First, he would pay all late fees and damages; Second, the rent would be raised 20%; Third, the security deposit needs to be raised to the same as new rent; Forth, I don't have time to chase after him for late rent, so I want all four rent checks signed and paid up front at lease signing, dated for the first of each month. He agreed and we did a renewal, and end up parting ways 4 months later without any hassle.
