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Notice of late rent from landlord
Klein
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My roommate and I usually pay our rent at the beginning of the month, but it looks like I misplaced my check when placing it in the envelope. Today, we received a notice that the check was missing, and I paid the remaining rent and late fee, and gave a note of apology. I noticed that we were supposed to get an eviction notice on the 5th, but neither I or my roommate saw the notice, and only today found out about the missing portion of the rent. If I have paid the rest of the rent and late fee, are more landlords understanding that situations like this happen? I am worried that I could lose my place or get evicted over a mistake on my part. We have never been late on rent prior. I plan on calling tomorrow to make sure, I just wanted to hear from others who may have been in a similar situation. Thanks!
Klein on
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In general, if you pay the remaining rent promptly and the late fees, you're not going to get evicted over that. But that's a huge generalization and individual circumstances can be wildly different.
Calling them ASAP and discussing the situation with them is really what you need to do.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I turned in the remaining rent and fee, and I plan on calling tomorrow as their office is closed.
Landlords generally send eviction notices out quickly after nonpayment of rent, because the longer they wait to do that the longer they must delay evicting delinquents. The terms of your rental agreement probably stipulate that it is back in force based on you settling your outstanding bill, but that depends on the agreement (and again, on local regulations.) If you are not under contract the landlord may be permitted to give you notice at any time.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
This is a pretty common practice. Definitely take this issue seriously (which it sounds like you're doing) but don't panic.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
We were all very surprised to see an eviction notice on our door during the first week of the month! One simple phone call revealed the issue, which we quickly remedied and the landlord was like okay, you're good.
I remain peeved to this day that they didn't just pick up the phone and call one of us about the missing check, but they aren't legally required to do that, and landlords in college towns are usually dicks.
Just call them up and they will most likely tell you now that you've paid, everything is back to normal.
I was in the leasing office one day asking a question about furniture disposal I think, and my landlord and I got to talking. That week she'd finally thrown up her hands and instituted a policy where submitting multiple checks to pay rent for the same unit is no longer allowed in our complex because it makes so much extra work for her, especially when people are bad at math. Do what you've gotta do, but one check per apartment per month. It's easier to keep track of, easier to process, and depending on the state and the management company and so forth, literally a fraction of the work for your landlord.
Doing extra work and then finding the numbers don't add up and then chasing down fractions of rent and then figuring out which one of you owes it and THEN having to process that fraction of rent separately make landlords really cranky. You don't want a cranky landlord.
Eviction is generally a pain in the ass, and is usually very expensive for a landlord (at a minimum you're looking at a month of no rent paid while the unit itself is empty, plus cleaning/painting/listing fees/etc), so barring some very unusual circumstances you're not going to be evicted.
This is because landlords in college towns have to deal with college students, which out of all available tenant types are universally the worst.
Regarding your credit score question: generally no. Stuff like this doesn't appear on your credit score until it's so bad they get a collections agency involved or they get a court of law to issue a judgment against you.
The only thing to worry about is your tenant reference when you move, but to be honest this stuff happens pretty commonly. As long as it only happens once and as long as you work with your landlord swiftly (which you did) it'll be fine.
Some landlords are dicks about it but it doesn't sound like yours is.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.