Could you all share what are these terms in your lease? I will need to write up a new lease when I find a new tenant.

1. how many days to start the late fee charge? I usually allow one day. It means it dues on the 1st, if I receive (the bank account receives) on the second day, then the late fee starts.

2. How much can you charge on the late fee?

The first day is $55 plus $15 , then the second day will $15.

How did you do your lease.

3. What kind of repair the landlord should do? If when I hand the property to the tenant, everything is function and in good conditions?

4. Which day should I start the eviction process?

5. Any special terms you recommend to add to the lease. How about the insults from the tenants?

Thanks. I am not a realtor, I can not use the standard lease from the agency , I am compiling the info from this forum and customer-designed lease.

Alice.. 1st stop is to see what TX will allow or not under LL/tenant laws..

1) Check with your attorney, but my understanding is that you can't charge a late fee until after the day after it's due. So if it's due on the first, they have until the second to get it in without penalty, and then you can charge a late fee beginning on the third. You'd want to check and see what Texas says about how to treat days where the banks are closed-- like Saturdays and Sundays-- when those days affect the timeline.

2) There aren't any restrictions that I'm aware of. I want something that I have (a) a decent chance of collecting, and (b) a decent chance of defending as a reasonable charge should someone challenge me on it in court. So for me, I do 5% of all funds not paid by x day.

3) I repair the things that I need to repair to protect my investment. When the tenant causes damage-- punches through a glass cabinet door, or shoots out a shed window, or tears a fridge handle off the fridge, or pours grease down the sink-- then I charge them for repairs. When I have to deal with stuff that's just a normal part of owning a house-- the a/c goes out, or shingles blow off a roof, or there's a water leak in the yard line, or a faucet cartridge breaks-- then I take care of it. Sometimes it's a bit of both-- someone abuses the toilet, and wiggles it so that it's no longer properly seated. I take care of that, too, because I'd prefer my tenants to tell me there's a problem, rather than hiding a problem and letting it damage the house, because they don't have $x to take responsibility. If your tenants are in a better economic situation than mine, then you can put more demands on them.

4) Eviction is expensive. It costs about $300-ish for serving two people, if I recall. And in my market, it's slow... we're supposed to get our day in court in (10?) days, but my local JP is very tenant-friendly, and it takes more like 3 or 4 weeks to get on his calendar. So in my local courts, that's a thing of last resort. I'll usually do a three-day-pay-or-quit to get their attention before I actually file an eviction.

5) I'm a professional and a lady. :) Allowing-- or cultivating-- abusive situations isn't part of my universe. Half of it depends on screening-- putting in people who know how to act in a socially acceptable way; people who know how to maintain respectful communication even during stressful situations; etc. The other half of it depends on me, and my verbal/nonverbal cues that influence the tone of our interaction, not just during stressful situations, but throughout our entire history of interaction with each other.

I've only had one tenant who thought he could mouth off at me. :) He was someone I had broken my rules for-- and he reminded me why I didn't break my rules! :P He was my handyguy's helper who had been awesome and diligent on some grunt work, and wanted to rent a 1/1 garage apartment I didn't have proper respect for. He had moved back in from out-of-state and was crashing on his sister's couch, and was looking for his own place. I told him, "I'd rather lose a tenant than a handyguy-- I'm breaking my rules because you're so awesome!" And he moved in, and promptly became less awesome, and used his newfound freedom to fall back into a prescription drug habit I didn't know anything about and that didn't show up in either real screening, or the grapevine. I was prompt in paying him... he wasn't so prompt in paying me, because all his money was going towards his habit. And, muddled up on prescription drugs, his productivity slowed down to a snail's pace and he couldn't think straight. When I told him I needed him to catch up on what he owed me, he said, "Well, I might try and get you some money next week. Maybe." And I'm like, "I see. Well, this isn't working out. This is your thirty days' notice. Please sign here."

Cue the tirade. :) Told me my plumbers hated me because I owed them $5k and was slow to pay, and the whole town knew I bounced checks. And that was when I knew he was making stuff up, because my last job with those plumbers was $3600; I knew my payment history; and I knew I'd never bounced a check in my life. :P

State of NJ requires a ten day grace period before eviction can begin. Most people charge a late fee after five days. I have used a one time charge of $25 or $10 per day when I first started out.

You do repairs when some part of your property fails by itself. I do repairs even if the tenant broke something and I charge them when they leave. I keep the bill. You must have a bill for repair or replacement or you can't charge. You must know when something fails or if the tenant broke it. Think if you ever broke that item and how it happened. The repair man can tell you how an item broke and who broke it.

Insults from tenants.... Solution: grow thicker skin and non-renew their lease.

I'm not sure what the deal is if you're regularly having problems with insults from tenants. I've been in the biz since 2005, and the only time insults have happened is when we've already filed for eviction, and at that point it's a non-issue since they will be leaving in 21 days or less.

Alice,

Get to Convention. I'm doing a big presentation on making your lease work for you.

Because the theme is DO LESS, MAKE MORE.

A super lease means less work and more money!