We've all heard the excuses: • My grandma died and I had to fly to (name the state) for her funeral • I had to go back to (name the state) for my best friend's wedding • Someone stole my identity and emptied my bank account • I'm waiting on a settlement for the car accident What is the most common excuse you've heard for rent being late?

My most common is bank has freeze on my account because someone tried to steal my identity I have now got my standard response down pat Sir I know that can’t be true for two reasons 1: you are broke and never have money 2; your a loser with money or credit and no one would even want your identity

@Nathan G. I've now rented to about 1,500 college students and had probably ~200 broken window panes. I can only recall 4 having admitting that they had something to do with it. It's always "I have no idea how that happened!". It's so rare that I always fix it for free if they tell me the truth.

A relative died......Based on how many times I have heard this, it is hard for me to understand how our population keeps growing

@Nathan G. I recently had a tenant who's ACH payment bounced. I always collect money orders or cashier's checks once an ACH bounced, and when I asked the tenant if he had dropped the payment at the rent collection box he ended up telling me someone had broken into his car and stolen the money order. I then told him to take the money order receipt back to the place to get a new one. He told me he didn't know there was a receipt and they had stolen that. Somehow he was able to come up with the rent the next Friday which was pay day.

"It's cleaner than when I moved in!" I hear this at least once a month and it's a clear indication that it is not cleaner and - in most cases - hasn't been cleaned at all. In most of these instances, the tenant didn't submit a move-in checklist or otherwise document any problems with the rental when they first moved in. Now that they're moving out, they claim the place was a disaster. How convenient.

The most common excuse I have heard over the years, not related to rent is, "It was like that when we moved in." That is the catch all excuse for any damage or uncleaned item at move out. As far as rent excuses, "I changed bank accounts" is pretty common. It is usually true, but they were probably forced to change accounts after the bank closed it. My favorite rent excuse was, "I don't know how rent can be late, I mailed it on the 4th." Our policy is rent is due on the 1st with a grace period on late fee until the 5th. This case it arrived on the 6th and was post marked on the 5th. I also love when you call a tenant to ask why rent is late and the response is "XYZ is broken and needs to be fixed". How is the fact that something broke at all related to them not paying rent on time? I don't take much rent by mail anymore, but when I did, it was always funny how the same tenant would blame the mail over and over. I once told someone, why is it that out of a hundred rent checks I get in the mail, only yours is mishandled by the post office? Seems like you have really bad luck, haha.

I can't tell you how many times Tenants claim to have been robbed. We live in one of the safest communities in the country where half the people never, ever lock the doors on their cars or houses. Yet Tenants constantly claim someone stole money from their purse, stole their debit card, etc. The most interesting part: it's always the low-income tenants that live in cheap apartments, drive clunker cars, and live paycheck-to-paycheck that are always robbed. Why doesn't anyone break into the nice cars or steal from the rich people?

If anyone beats this one. I will be impressed. Sorry we are going to be late with the rent because the car we are working on was towed. It was towed because the cops found a dead body in the back seat and needed to continue the investigation. Mind blown.

@Nathan G. I’m waiting on a car accident settlement is the one I hear the most. Then I also hear my car broke and I needed to take it to the repair shop and it cost this. I didn’t expect my utilities to be this much blah blah. I make them put down a good security deposit my state allows me twice the monthly rent.

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