All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Even though you may have rent is due on the 1st of the month in a Lease Agreement, some how, tenants, even customers, believe they have a grace period, which to them means that rent is not due actually on the 1st, but on the date you charge that late fee. 

My lease agreement states the facts and nothing but the facts, and I never use the word "Grace Period" in any of my contracts.  This is what I say.

Rent is due on the 1st of every month.  If rent isn't in my office on or before the 1st of the month then you will be sent a Notice to Quit for non payment of rent.  

If rent is not received in my office on the 5th of the month then you will be billed a late fee of $25.00.

THE ANSWER TO CORBY'S QUESTION

Rent is due on the first of every month, and if not received in my office on or before the 1st of the month then I send out that NOTICE TO QUIT for non payment rent.  You see, you can't even file for an eviction until that Notice to Quit is sent. 

By sending that Notice to Quit I have protected myself, plus if rent isn't received in my office on or before the 5th then I've accumulated more money, a late fee of $25.00, yet the Eviction process is still going on.  I haven't lost time.  This is why you never wait until you have to charge anyone a late fee to file that Notice to Quit.  You always file it the day after the rent was due in your office. 

Then if rent isn't received in my office on or before the legal day requirements of filing that Notice to Quit in a court of law, then I can file that Notice to Quit right away, after the time has elapsed for them to have responded to that Notice to Quit.  I haven't lost time.  Because  TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE  !!!  

If you actually call something a GRACE PERIOD, then the courts can construe this to mean that the tenant has until the 5th (I'm using that as an example) to pay their rent and give them a leeway to have the Judge say to you, well you've allowed them to pay rent on the 5th all these months so you have changed the contracts due date.

I never give the Judge or the Tenants a "Loop Hole" to where a Judge can use his or her opinion to award the tenant(s) for bad behavior. 

So the major difference, is that no matter what, you send that NOTICE TO QUIT, the very first day rent is late.  (And still charge a late fee....but never call it a grace period.  Whenever a tenant would say grace period to me, I corrected them immediately)

So you have to be very careful in the wording of your Application Forms, and Lease Agreements, and even verbal agreements.  

(P.S. Corey)  Your little baby in your picture looks like a real cutie pie.  Okay that's the soft side of me.  Now...back to business)

Nancy Neville

It is normal to feel afraid and anxious when a tenant threatens to sue.  Even us seasoned landlords get frustrated over this because we hate having to go to court.

What is important when we do go to court is to make sure we have all the documents to prove our case.  But even though we cover our behinds 100%, there is always that one tenant that believes we are wrong and they are right and that they will win.  How I detested these types of lawsuits as they are time wasters.

However, it is part of being a landlord.  And, when you have done everything correctly, have documents to prove your case, then there is nothing to worry about when you go to court.  It is natural to be nervous when standing in front of a crowd and in front of a Judge.  (They look so mean!!!)  (Remember your back faces the crowd.  All you see is the Judge, so nothing to shake and shiver about)

But Judges love landlords who are professional and organized and have evidence. 

Also, most times a tenant threatening to sue will not sue.  It is just another way of trying to get out of something.  

So let the tenant do what they have to do and if you have to go to court, go to court.  I always viewed going to court as a college course.  You learn a lot by listening to other cases that are ahead of you.  And then you go home and add more Addendums to your lease agreement.  (What you can learn in court is an eye opener for sure)

Nancy Neville

Whenever we choose an applicant we run a credit check on them to see if they qualify and to see if they are COLLECTIBLE.  This credit check is not free.  We have to pay for that.  Generally people know that there are are more than one person interested in your property, therefore they know they take a chance on getting the place.  

Because you have already paid to check them out, why should you have to pay them back if they and another party qualify, especially when the application form says, Non-Refundable?  By you running a credit check on them, they are able to receive a copy of the report by writing to the reporting agency.  They can take that with them when they apply somewhere else and most likely avoid paying another Application Fee. 

Nancy Neville

Most applications fees are NON-REFUNDABLE, but  best to have it in writing on the application form, to protect yourself against such a thing as this in court. 

I would always advertise that the Application fee would be applied to the move in fees if they qualified. Otherwise, it was Non-refundable.  And, if two or more people qualified for the same unit, they would be offered another unit that was available.  And if they didn't want that unit, they would be put on the waiting list and have top priority since they qualified. 

Put everything in writing so that they can't ever say they didn't know.  They signed it.  Too bad...so sad!

Nancy Neville

Send a Termination of Tenancy  (Non-renewal of the lease) if your state law has one, along with this letter.   (A Termination of Tenancy is not an Eviction Notice)

Dear (Tenants name)

My name is _____________________ and I have just purchased the property located at  _____________________________.  

As I will be moving into this property in three months, I regret that I must inform you that I will not be renewing your lease with us, making your last day with us   _____________.

Please understand that this is not an eviction and I will be glad to give you my name as a reference.  

Sincerely

QuickBooks was designed for the Non-Accountant small business owner and is truly user friendly.

You don't need to know Debits and Credits because QuickBooks does all this for you behind the scenes.   

However, until some one teaches you how to do anything in life, one never knows how to do anything in life one hundred percent, at least by themselves.  

So this is a concept to help you out.  

You have to think of QuickBooks as your paper and pencil. 

If you sat down at the table you would bring out your paper and pencil and begin to list all your properties and how much rent you would get from them to see how much income you would make per property and for all your properties together, giving you a total income for everything per month.

In QuickBooks your paper is your computer screen.  And QuickBooks does everything basically in outline form. So you are going to have a lot of indenting to do when you enter your data into QuickBooks.  

But in order to indent you need to know the words QuickBooks uses to allow you to indent and to see your reports in outline form and these words are as follows:

• Sub-Class   (a word for indenting in the Class section of QuickBooks)
• Job (A word to indent in the Customer Center)
• Sub-Account (A word to indent in the Chart of Accounts

Now the reason why QuickBooks uses these words for us to indent is because QuickBooks was first designed for the Building Industry, and Retail.  Therefore when they had a Customer, they needed to list what type of job they would be doing for this customer.  A kitchen rehab job, Windows, etc.  As much as QuickBooks as evolved in being user friendly, they have not come to the point yet, where we are allowed to customized the word Customer to Properties, or job to Tenants.  One day perhaps they will implement this. 

So let's list our properties as a class in the Class Feature of QuickBooks (just as we did on paper) to see what properties we own.  

The next thing we will do is list the properties again as the Customer in the Customer Center, because we need our rental property to be the ANCHOR that enables us to know (at a glance) where this tenant lives.  So we make our Property the Header (The customer) and then indent the tenant who lives there by making it a job of the rental property)  (See sample below)

So we listed all of our properties as a Class and then again as a Customer and made the tenants a job of the rental properties in the Customer Center and the amount of rent for each property (this is done through an Invoice)

So now, just like on paper, we have created a list of our properties, the tenants who live there and how much rent we will get for each property.  

So let's take a look at how this will look in QuickBooks.

Classes = a list of your properties  

          8252 Wisconsin Street Apartments  (Header)  (Class)

                 Unit 1   (sub class)  of the apartment building  (indenting)

                 Unit 2 (sub class)  of the apartment building   (Indenting)

You can see that the Building is the header and the units inside the building is a sub class.  Just another word for indenting. 

If you had single family homes you would just list them as headers with no sub class.

15333 Evergreen Street

17148 Braile Avenue

1645 Jeffrey Lane

Customer Center: 

            8252 Wisconsin Street Apartments  Customer = Header = rental property

                Unit 1 (Job of the building)  (indenting)

                          Teresa Williams    (tenant- she is a job of the unit) (job=indenting)

                Unit 2 (job of the building)

                          Brian Matthews (tenant- he is a job of the unit)  (word for indenting)

15333 Evergreen Street (Header) Customer = the building SFH

                            Michelle Liverpool   (job of the building)   (Indenting)

               17148 Braile Avenue   (Header)  Customer = the building

                            Kathryn Grant  (job of the building)   (word for indenting)

Chart of Accounts= sub account (indenting)

              Security Deposits   (main account)

                         Teresa Williams  (sub account)

                          Brian Matthews  (sub account

                          Michelle Liverpool (sub account)

                          Kathryn Grant (sub account

See all we are doing is listing and indenting.  QuickBooks does the rest for you. Ya just have to get used to the indenting words, and understand that you are just doing everything in a computer that would normally you would do on paper. But QuickBooks will calculate everything for you.

Three major things to know about in QuickBooks to obtain the facts you want to obtain is the 

• The Chart of Accounts (Accounts used to report your taxes to the IRS)
• Profit and Loss Report   (A Report that tells you where you stand financially)
• Balance Sheet (A report that tells you your net worth TODAY)

These three Reports affect each other. So even though QuickBooks is easy to use, you must be very accurate when you enter in your data.  Just like if you transpose a figure on paper, you will have bad results, well this is the same thing in QuickBooks.  Make a mistake and you will have bad results. So don't be careless and take your time, whether keeping track of your finances on paper or in QuickBooks.

So that is my advice to you. Hopes this helps. 

Nancy Neville

Very good letter.  Thank you for sharing that with everyone!

Nancy Neville

Okay, I see the Security Deposit was transferred to you.  You must have posted while I was writing.  

They have left.  You know they have left.  If there isn't anything inside the home, they have abandoned it and you have the right to regain possession of the home. 

Nancy Neville

When we sold our properties I had it put in the contract that they could purchase our properties for such and such amount, which included the Security Deposits, or I could lower the sale of the house, by the amount of the Security Deposit and have it be their responsibility.   They chose to purchase our homes with the lower sale price of our homes making the Security Deposit their responsibility. 

I'm glad I did that (had it in the contract) because a year later, after selling, tenants contacted us regarding their Security Deposit.  So I sent them a copy of the page where it said the new owners were responsible for the Security Deposit. 

So, with this said and done.  Did you have such a contract?  If there was no meeting of the minds between you and the seller, regarding Security Deposits, then the seller is responsible for the return of the Security Deposit, technically.   

But if there isn't any wording to this in the contract, then a Judge may have to step in and make a ruling.  

Nancy Neville

Having problems with my Internet.  Nothing like repeating oneself over and over again! 

Sorry!