Landlord Newsletter September 22, 2009 |
LPA Discounts! FREE Sign Up "Of all the sites out there, the LPA by FAR has the most extensive resources, the most knowledgeable help, the most expertise, and is quite possibly the best real estate site I've used in my career." Dr. Dani Babb, Author of "The Accidental Landlord" LPA Member since 2007 "My LPA Membership has saved me from so many expensive tenant problems, it has already paid for itself many times over." Louis C., LPA Member since February 2001 The LPA not only lets you share your experience with other landlords, but it will also help to answer your questions. Timothy Spangler, Author of "From the Rat Race to Real Estate", LPA Member since December 2003 The Web site was founded by John Nuzzolese, and he is a “nice guy” like we were when we started. He learned many lessons the hard way, like we did, and so you will benefit greatly from his experiences, and from being part of this group. Kind regards, Sandy Midea, Author of "A Fool's Guide to Landlording" "The LPA Lease has become my favorite lease, and enforcing it with the Essential Forms is even better. Managing my properties (tenants) has become much easier." Jack Klein, LPA Member since May 2001. "The question should be ..." "Can you afford not to join The Landlord Protection Agency? I'm very thankful for all The LPA has done for us. At first we were intimidated by our tenants and the whole process of leasing and managing our rental property. Now we have 3 rentals with excellent tenants!" Carol and Jim S., LPA Members since July 2003 "I'd like to thank Mr. Nuzzolese for sharing his landlording knowledge with us. I find it refreshing to be able to get down to earth articles and real life helpful advice on the LPA website. Gary Smith, LPA Member since 2007 "I cannot express how your products have made my job so much easier. I have peace of mind now knowing that I am protected by the verbiage you have in your contracts. Thank you so much." Tony Gramm, Aurora, OH Ask the Attorney For LPA Members |
Dear Fellow Landlord, Once again, I'd like to thank all of you who have been supporting The LPA! I'm happy to report that more landlords than ever before taking advantage of the benefits of LPA membership and are doing a better job managing their properties and avoiding bad tenants!
In this issue:
Please e-mail us if you have any questions or would like to add or share any material / information. What do I do when...the tenant won't pay the late fees?Have you ever had a tenant who pays the rent late, but always ignores the late fee? How about when you repeatedly send late fee notices? Are those notices ignored too? Don't you just hate that? You are not alone. I know the feeling. Many, many landlords experience this frustration. Because the tenant pays the rent, though late, most landlords are willing to let it slide. You may be tempted to look the other way, reasoning that the tenant isn't so bad. "At least the rent is getting paid", you might think. Why rock the boat, right? "At least I'm not dealing with an eviction... yet." You might also be thinking that you can collect these unpaid charges from the security deposit. Depending on the particular situation, that might be an excellent idea. You may be able to stall the inevitable, but sooner or later, things are going to come to a head. Eventually, late charges will accumulate to a level higher than the security deposit. Is there a better way? The LPA Lease provides that late charges are classified as "added rent", which means you may legally collect those late fees in all the same ways you are allowed to collect rent, because "added rent" is rent. In light of the fact that we have "Added Rent" explained in our lease, we have also updated the lease to include another hard hitting sentence. Copy and paste this into your lease if you don't already have the most recently updated copy of The LPA Lease.
What does this mean? It means that you have the right to apply the tenant's next payment towards past due unpaid late fees. If you choose to apply your tenant’s current rent payment towards past due balances, keep in mind that this action will obviously offset the current month’s rent to a deficiency. The amount of the past due charges will determine how far delinquent the tenant’s current rent will now be. With that in mind, you may decide not to pay off the full amount of past due charges in one shot, but over a few months. Once you have paid past due charges out of the latest rent payment, you should inform the tenant of exactly how the rent was applied and what the balance now due is. I have done this using the Account Status Notification or the Rent Deficiency Notice . This method of late fee collection can be a delicate one if your intention is to preserve the tenancy. It can also be a propellant to an eviction, since most judges will be more apt to evict for unpaid rent rather than unpaid late fees. Ask the AttorneyThe Landlord Protection Agency® is proud to introduce John Reno, Esq., a highly experienced Landlord - Tenant attorney based on Long Island, NY. If you have a landlord tenant problem you'd like to ask a question about, please feel free to e-mail me your question.
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"I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened." - Mark Twain
"You have to accept whatever comes and the important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best you have to give." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"The best antidote to fear is knowledge." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"How much did your last tenant problem cost you?" - John Nuzzolese
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