Application Of Late Fee For Nonpayment Of Rent: Fill & Download for Free

Here in super tenant friendly Alberta, if the eviction were SOLELY for nonpayment of rent, the payment in full of the arrears and late fees would stop it. It is the only remedy.In B.C. and other provinces, you owe the rent regardless and a pay or quit is more of a pay and quit.Read the applicable tenant law in your jurisdiction.

You need to look into the specifics for your state, but in the absence of a lease, a tenant is considered to be renting on a month-to-month basis. What that means is that you should be able to file for eviction if you issue a 30 day notice to vacate and he doesn’t comply.You do not need to show cause to end a month-to-month tenancy, but if you prefer, you could terminate the (verbal) agreement for nonpayment or rent. This also depends on your state, but you may be able to issue a notice to vacate with a shorter timeframe. You do need to be aware that accepting any rent after you’ve issued a notice for nonpayment cancels that notice. Let’s say that my tenant didn’t pay rent, so I issue an unconditional notice to vacate on the 2nd, giving the tenant 5 days to get out. If I accept even $1 towards the rent owed before those five days are up, I have effectively rescinded the notice. The tenant still owes rent, but if I want them gone I will need to issue another 5 day notice, which is why you should wait until the tenant has been evicted or left to collect – though terminating the agreement without cause would bypass this issue entirely.I would recommend that you immediately issue a written 30 day notice to vacate, keeping a copy for your own records, and have a serious conversation with your tenant. They are counting on your lack of familiarity with the legal system as it pertains to eviction, so this is when you tell them that you have no problem going to court. Explain that verbal lease agreements are common and routinely enforced by the courts, and that you are prepared to sue for eviction and unpaid rent.Depending on your state, these matters are typically handled in less formal venues, like small claims, justices of the peace, or magistrates appointed specifically for this purpose. You do not need an attorney to file, allowances are made, and the fee to file is negligible. If your tenant refuses to leave in response to the notice, you will have a very simple case for eviction. Your tenant’s only defense would be to show a lease guaranteeing him a longer term, so you will win. At that point you will make an appointment with the appropriate law enforcement agency to come out and physically remove your tenant.You need to explain all this to your tenant, as well as what it means to have an eviction on your record. It’s a matter of public record, and any landlord can easily access this information – and 99 percent of us will check. Once a landlord sees that an applicant has been evicted, they will refuse to rent to him. Make sure your tenant understands that you will file for eviction on the 31st day if he hasn’t left voluntarily, and that if he forces you to go to court, you might as well go all in and sue for unpaid rent, court cost, and any damage done to the property. Explain that the eviction suit itself will serve as the proof you need to sue him for rent and damages, as it will show that he was in fact your tenant. Tell him that this will result in a second judgment against him, this one forcing him to pay you what will likely be thousands of dollars, and that it’s a simple matter to have the sheriff’s department carry out a wage garnishment.Don’t be afraid to overstate your confidence. This is how I deal with troublesome tenants: I scare the shit out of them with promises of legal action (but only when I’m prepared to follow through if necessary), and once they understand that the only alternative to cooperation is getting dragged out of the house, living in a motel for the next decade, having their wages garnished and credit ruined, I offer them a deal. If they leave immediately and clean up after themselves, I won’t sue.

This answer won’t make me very popular among renters, but the truth is that I offer no grace period whatsoever. None of my tenants are poor and my units aren’t cheap, so it’s my belief that any adult who is competent enough to live alone should be competent enough to know that rent is due on the 1st of each month – and in the event that they genuinely can’t pay, I’d have to order them to vacate anyway.Grace periods are fairly common and they make a lot of sense for tenants living paycheck to paycheck. Someone in those circumstances could easily need an extra day or two to come up with the rent without it representing any new financial distress that would make the home unaffordable to them, but it’s still just a curtesy that many landlords offer: The rent is due on the date listed in the lease, and it’s up to us if/when we’ll accept payment after that and what fees we’ll attach. I don’t even accept applicants who don’t make at least four times as much as the rent and have enough savings for three months, and with rents going up to nearly $5,000, there’s no reason why my tenants should need extra time to pay. Back when I owned cheaper units, I didn’t post a notice to vacate until they were three days late, but if my current tenants’ finances have deteriorated to the point where they need three more days to get the money together, it’s safe to say that they can no longer afford the rent.If you’ve already gotten all worked up about how unfair this is, please take a breath and consider that this is explicitly explained to all applicants before they sign a lease. Not only do they need to initial the relevant section and sign the the lease, but we also have a new tenant informational booklet and we verbally state that this clause is not just a rough guideline: Rent absolutely must be paid by the end of day on the 1st, because we post the notice to pay or vacate early on the morning of the second. It’s not that I’m trying to be a dick, but if they don’t pay or leave voluntarily, I’ll need to evict. Unless I post the notice immediately I won’t actually be able to have them removed by force until the very end of the month, by which point it will be too late to get the home ready for someone else by the 1st. You see, I can’t file for eviction until I’ve posted a five day notice and given them a chance to respond, and I don’t receive credit for any time that I gave them as a grace period.This is a business with some fairly complicated financial transactions, and it’s all based on rents being deposited into the accounts at the very start of the month. Admittedly I have (or had, before this eviction moratorium) enough funds in reserve for it not to matter much if I don’t get paid immediately, but it still makes my bookkeeper’s job harder. Besides, I didn’t grow my business by cutting it close to the edge when there was no benefit in it for me, so I insist on timely payment. It’s only fair, because you don’t think that my tenants would tolerate me paying them their deposit back whenever it was convenient for me? No, of course not, they’d raise hell if it went over thirty days.My state is pretty strong on landlord’s rights so I don’t have to give tenants the option to stay if they pay, not once they’re late, but I usually do if it’s the first time and I have no other reason to get rid of them. Because of that, the five day notice I issue on the 2nd usually means that they have what almost amounts to a grace period, as they won’t be sued or evicted if they pay in full before the time is up. I do report all late payments to credit agencies, because that’s the entire point, and I do tack on late fees ($25 for the first late day, $35 for the second, and so on up to $225 total) because of the inconvenience to me and my staff. The only exceptions here are those tenants who contact my office before rent is due to inform us that they’re moving out because they cannot pay, because then I’ll negotiate a fee and payment plan for breaking the lease rather than evict and sue.I offer no grace period, but paying one day late won’t get a good tenant turned out on the street. They will get a written notice posted on their door, they will get a fee, and it could affect their credit, but that’s pretty typical for late payments of any kind. It’s just the only way I can protect myself and avoid having to house nonpaying any longer than I absolutely have to.