Lease language re erentpayment.com account

[Susan H.]

I'm editing my lease document to reflect my (planned) use of erentpayment.com for rent payments. (Mine is currently full of the old bank account info for direct deposit/mailing.) If you're collecting rent via erentpayment.com, would you please share the language you use in your lease agreement? Do you also include another payment option if they don't want to use erentpayment.com?

Also, do you require tenants to pay the first month's rent and security deposit to that account or do you collect at time of lease signing?

I'm grappling with the details, and appreciate all suggestions!

[Kimberly H.]

@Susan H. After the new tenant tells us that they've switched it to their name, we call the utility to verify that it is in fact in their name. And if they decide not to pay their utilities after we move in, we have an upcharge in the lease if we need to pay them, and any rent payments they make to us go to other things first before rent such as utility payments before they are applied to rents. The last thing we need is more bills to pay and accounting to keep track of, so we charge extra for that for that reason and as a deterrent. We are also signed up for landlord programs with gas and electric, so the gas and electric companies notify us if a tenant cancels utilities and bills us in the interim, which was quite helpful when a tenant moved out a month early with no notice and left all the windows open...