unusual rent amount - Landlord Forum thread 341191

unusual rent amount by Anonymous (CA) on November 28, 2015 @14:42

My T., who's been renting my property for almost a year, paid an unusual rent amount for December. The amount is $XXX.45, which is $14.55 short of the regular rent amount. I am puzzled to what it means. I will certainly ask the T , but wanted to see if anybody here experienced this. Should I start eviction if the T doesnt pay the remaining $14.55?

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Re: unusual rent amount by Marge (CO) on November 28, 2015 @15:04	[ Reply ]

Has the tenant been paying late often? Is it the first time the tenant paid short rent? Maybe it is just an error. Ask first. I would assess late fee first, because if the tenant this far performed reasonably, it would be shame to get rid of them. If, however, the tenant was habitually late with payment, and now starts paying short, ask them to move out. If that does not work, all you have left is eviction, I think.

Re: unusual rent amount

Re: unusual rent amount by Anonymous on November 28, 2015 @17:25	[ Reply ]

Since you didn't specify, I will assume that your tenant does not have a payment problem. It's possible he just made an error, transposed a number, was tired when he wrote the check, etc. Your first step should not have been to panic, think of evictions, and send your query to the internet. A simple phone call to your tenant will give you the answers. "Hello, thank you for sending in your rent payment, but there seems to be an error and it's short $14.55. Do you know what happened?" Simple.

Re: unusual rent amount by anon on December 1, 2015 @22:23	[ Reply ]

They probably fixed something and are deducting it without asking you or providing receipt or both. Call them for a real phone conversation about it to prevent more occurrences.