Just found out Wifey's helper got a call from a res who ANNOUNCED on June 1 she would delay her payment due to an urgent __________ (fill in the blank with anything).

Cleverly, Wifey and helper put this res on weekly payments for the one month, planning to go back to monthly July 1.

Money wise it worked out, brought in an extra $68 for June (big whoop! :( and left res owing for the last 2 days of June. Helper told the res about the 2 days, it will be taken out with the July1 rent.

I declared we're never doing that again because it probably cost us $100 in calls, texts, fiddling, discussing, risk of not being paid, etc.

Today the res called in with a pizzy attitude with a laundry list of complaints, some about how poorly we treated them!?! (Basic LLing 101: when they run out of ammunition they will attack your character.)

Keep in mind our standard policy is Zero Tolerance on lates - If you are short on cash use your credit card, or family, or church, or social agencies, or sell something.

Do you think we should have allowed this one month special program?

I don't think it was a mistake per se, but the tenant's sour disposition probably nothing would have made her happy unless you did everything the way she wanted you to.

Did it cost $100 to say, "Well, Mrs. Jones sorry to hear you're having issues....let me tell you about how our weekly payment plan will fix your problem." I have a spreadsheet where all I have to do is key in their monthly rate and it spits out a chart of payments that shows how much, due when, covers what days. I export to PDF with a signature block, email to resident who signs it and sends it back. 15 minutes, maybe?

There's no pleasing some people, but I'll give it 15 minutes worth of effort to avoid filing an eviction and eating a month's lost rent plus turn over as long as they agree to MY terms.

One thing more: if I have to put them on a payment plan, they must stay with it for 90 days. That way I do get some extra compensation for the effort. 1 month is not enough time unless you want to charge an "admin" fee of $50 or so.

As always, the choice is theirs:

A) Pay according to the original agreement.

B) Pay according to the modified agreement I offer.

C) Move out in 3 days. I file with collections.

D) Be evicted.

As LLs, our options are often curtailed by Fair Housing. So, I use Fair Housing as a reason NOT to give special consideration to tenants. Discrimination is a two way street -- you can discriminate against someone and you can also discriminate FOR someone. Both are illegal.

My standard answer is "We cannot do for one tenant what we would not do for ALL tenants, because that would be discriminatory and against Fair Housing. You don't want me to break the law, do you?"

So, if your company policy is ZT, it has to be ZT for all tenants. I don't want you or your employees breaking the law.

Thanks for your comments and Thanks for letting me rant. After I calmed down, and your responses helped (MrLL Forum Therapy!) I'm seeing why this bugged me.

-helper sneaked it past me. Mad at myself because I didn't see it.

-experience tells me this type of late payment is usually the beginning of the end. I expect more late issues from this res. Like Paulio said our ZT position has been weakened.

-much of ZT is about NOT taking financial responsibikity for the res' personal issues. We stick to the lease and let them run their own life. We don't have staff to hand hold each res' "situation", esp when they call to TELL US they have chisen to use the rent money for something else and we can wait.

-we lost over half a million dollars "working with" people on rent "situations".

-we just trained her it's ok to be late.

The good news: even tho I would not have approved this it worked out (so far), Wifey and her helper were proactive, discussed this, and used our normal programs to solve a problem, and in LLing every month is a new beginning!

BRAD