Legal tender and payments

Jerm

Hey guys, just got a quick question here.

I thought I remember learning in high school that cash is primary legal tender and cannot be refused anywhere. Now my apartment complex is slapping all these bizarre regulations on me, one of which is that cash is not accepted.

Now I know that apartments especially have all kinds of crazy rules, but I'm mainly wondering - isn't it illegal to refuse the dollar?

KMFurDM

http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml

BlochWave

If you don't have a bank account(which seems wildly unlikely but I have to assume 'cuz that'd be the obvious thing to do, deposit the cash then write them a check)you have to do a money order thing, I guess

I guess they don't wanna be responsible for a person's whole rent in cash just sitting in the office or something

DrFrylock

I also recall hearing that there's a nuance about the difference between a debt and payment. Since you're paying rent in advance, you technically don't have a debt, since the landlord is not a creditor.

amateurhour

Every apartment complex I've lived in has this policy. I asked a manager once and she said it's so that the apartment complex cannot be responsible for loosing a large sum of money, it makes it more traceable (checks and money orders vs cash) and therefore if it does get lost you can just do a stop payment, and it makes them less likely to get robbed.

It's actually pretty sensible from their end, just use money orders, since you can buy those with cash.

Jerm

Thanks for the link KMFurDM, that explains a lot.

The reason I asked this was because we were charged a late fee of $50 and it seemed like we could avoid a hassle by just paying the fee in cash - I guess not.

Thanks guys, go ahead and lock this if you want