I have a tenant that asked if we would accept PayPal to pay for the rent. I said no (I have a PayPal account but only to purchase things).

Has anyone done this? Does it cost money to accept money? How does this work? Does it come from their checking account or is this a "credit" thing that it means they may not be able to actually pay their rent and are "charging" it?

Any insight would be appreciated.

I used to but stopped when they published new guidelines regarding business rules, etc.

When tenants are sending you rent each month, it's not because you are Family OR a Friend, and I didn't want any pushback from PayPal after their new rules came out.

J, you're right, and THAT is the big problem with this. They can stop an eviction by paying $1.

To add to the PayPal rental payment method, I had a tenant that used PayPay to pay the rent. When I fought against a PayPay reversal, the tenant then filed a complaint with the credit card they had attached to PayPay -- so the tenant had two chances to dispute their rental payment.

Last year I had a new tenant who disputed her rent the first month. She said it was a bank error. Who knows. It was resolved and I haven't had any other problems with her. She is a good tenant.

Hey guess what I just found on Paypal's website:

If you’re sending a personal payment, payment types include:

Gift - Select this payment type when you’re sending money as a gift for a birthday or other special occasion.

Payment Owed - Use this payment type for things like reimbursing a friend for your share of a restaurant check, or repaying money that a family member loaned you.

Cash Advance - Select this payment type when the money you’re sending isn’t for the purchase of goods or services. (Remember that your card issuer may charge a fee for cash advances.)

Living Expense - Use this payment type when you need to pay regular, recurring expenses like rent or utilities.

OK I didn't even think about the dispute portion. WMH does it state anywhere that if you use it for rent/utilities that there is a charge? I'm thinking not since they are trying to "sell" the renter in using it but the "merchant" is going to end up paying for it - right?

What is does NOT make clear is the merchant side (that's us.) If we accept rent as if it is from "friends and family" (the new designation on PayPal - I think the list I posted is old!) can they come back and grab business fees from us if they should be so inclined?

I don't worry about disputed payments so much for existing tenants. They don't pay, I evict. I think the problem is disputed payment and charge back after the tenant vacates. Tenant pays on time every month, gives proper notice, moves out, gets deposit refund, and at that point disputes the last two rent payments and gets a charge back.

I have, however, accepted paypal a couple of times for application fee. I haven't had any problems, but if I did losing $35 - $70 isn't going to bankrupt me.

The only problem was I had to refund an application fee (because I rented before I processed their application) and paypal had deducted a charge from what they gave me, so there was a shortage of funds when I reversed the payment.