I HAVE to use the rental portal to pay rent. I cannot drop off a check. I cannot pay cash.
Today, I got this in an email:
Here's the other options and the fees for those options:
So. There is literally no way for me to pay rent without paying a fee.
I HAVE to use the rental portal to pay rent. I cannot drop off a check. I cannot pay cash.
Today, I got this in an email:
Here's the other options and the fees for those options:
So. There is literally no way for me to pay rent without paying a fee.
This constitutes a material change to a contract, and you can back out of it. Sure, they will hassle you, but if you went to court, you'd win.
Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:This constitutes a material change to a contract, and you can back out of it. Sure, they will hassle you, but if you went to court, you'd win.
Florida has some pretty E36 M3 laws about rent. I wouldn't be surprised if it was perfectly legal.
Additionally, I'd then have to find another place (that likely already does this or worse)
In reply to Mr_Asa :
Or push them to follow the eviction process. I once got into a E36 M3ty situation when my place was sold. The real estate agent didn't like me pulling a gun on him when he unannounced walked in to show it. He called me day of closing and said I had 3 days to get out. A simple "Go ahead and evict me. See you in court." got me an apology and a $1000 offer to move out from the new owner that wanted to renovate.
More and more business wants to pass off the cost of doing business to the customer.
It's really a BS way of raising prices.
If they are going to handle finances they should handle finances
I'll go them one step further,
they can do an auto pay but I want a discount.
I hope I never rent again......
Certainly not from some carpetbagger like that.
I would be hitting the local tenant lawbooks pretty damn hard. If you're not able to pay your rent because they do not provide a reasonable way to pay it, that seems illegal to me. And a reasonable way to give you money does not involve my paying a fee.
The lease should say how rent must be paid, if there is no fee in that lease, you can fight it. The lease is the contract.
Ive never rented but ive had multiple friends have similar things happen and they were pretty much all resolved with the something along the lines of the second comment.
Material change to the contract
Youd be surprised how many companies do illegal things and people just go along with it
Disclaimer: Im not a lawyer, but a couple law classes and some reading have got me out of more than a couple jams
A friend got out of his lease last year because of a change to the parking situation
In my experience if a company is doing something illegal or in breach of contract. if you get someone a step or two above the normal customer facing employee they either know or are smart enough to look into it if you bring it up, and things get solved pretty quickly. If you are ever going to threaten legal action actually have a lawyer
There are also quite a few cases that cash is legal tender in this country and they have to accept it. The push for central bank digital currency though has cut into anyone willing to acknowledge this. This will become worse as the transaction to everything digital continues. You can fight it from a variety of angles or watch as it continues.
The condo I rented in 1987 required a $399 certified check each month. That was a hassle but he agreed to a 6 month lease which few landlords would so I rolled with it
Then two months into it I was asking to break the lease as I found a house to buy.
bentwrench said:More and more business wants to pass off the cost of doing business to the customer.....
Uhmmm... who exactly is supposed to pay for the cost of running a business then? The customer always pays (costs, overhead labor etc), that is a basic concept of a business.
I do agree using fee's to raise prices (or taxes) is BS.
Being in CA, the idea of being a landlord scares the hell out of me. You can get royally screwed by renters in this state. So it's not all rosey on the other side either.
aircooled said:Being in CA, the idea of being a landlord scares the hell out of me. You can get royally screwed by renters in this state. So it's not all rosey on the other side either.
There is no way I'd ever be a landlord here. There are some cities that STILL have covid eviction bans in force, and landlords who are owed over 3 years of back rent they'll never see.
Just make your rent payment minus the fee so the total is the same.
Just pay it or move out. Doing something other then those two things will make them find a way to move you out.
I would much rather the "vendor" just put the fees into the price and not come at me on the back side with various fees.
im taking my wife down to a concert in the tampa area later this year. I went to book a room at the recommended hotel, a hilton property. It was just under 300$. Sucky for just staying the night AFTER a concert but i was going to do it. Then go to check out, its just over 400$. Hellz naw. Then the kicker, on top of the extra fees that added another 100$, there is mandatory valet parking, thats 30$, then the cherry on top is a simple additional 25$ fee, non negotiable, no explanation. Like a "market adjustment". All kinds of go f yourself. Oh and if you want breakfast, thats gonna cost ya more too.
instead of that berk-ery, we are driving another 5 minutes away and staying at another hilton property for like 200$ all in. With "free" parking, breakfast, bla bla.
and for what its worth, im a hilton guy. Still have status and points, i used to stay with them around 50+ nights a year. Im not new to traveling at all, nor am i new to hotels.
quit being deceiving with the fees and crap. Just tell me how much it is up front.
if the fees are non negotiable, then they should just be part of the berking price!
In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
Im a landlord in Texas, which is much better than CA, and I can tell you its still barely worth it
Too many middle men in this economy
I know it doesn't help your situation right now, but I've had great luck with rental houses by exclusively seeking a property being rented by the actual owner. No rental corporations, no portals, no logins, no indian call center for maintenance requests, no bullE36 M3. Just mail or venmo the money each month. Paper contract signed in person. Ability to text the owner about issues. Reasonable flexibility of terms by dealing with an actual human bean. I've even done some handyman/maintenance work in exchange for money off rent. Everybody wins. Unfortunately those opportunities are going extinct with the ever-expanding corporate ownership of housing, and the ever-dwindling amount of common decency from renters and lords alike. A little trust and respect goes a long way, but it seems the chance to show those things to each other is being taken away.
Ranger50 said:Just pay it or move out. Doing something other then those two things will make them find a way to move you out.
I can assure you they will not move you. Eviction is expensive, time consuming, and in most states laws favor the tenants. You should treat them like they treat you, as a faceless resource to be used to your own benefit, and exploited whenever possible. Read the lease and find the best loopholes. It's just like building a racecar.
In reply to Racebrick :
You missed the part where they will not renew the lease and pull out a laundry list of why they aren't renewing. That's a "no dollar" way of moving you out.
It's a breach of contract and simple as that. Does your lease state you HAVE to use that application to pay rent? Even if it does, they can't deny you from paying rent with any form of legal tender. I would reach out to the landlord and dispute it first. There's got to be a better resolution than having to use some 3rd party vendor.
If you can't resolve it, bacon grease down the kitchen sink is a great way to say thank you.
Everyone and everything hits the consumer with fees. My Master's course at TAMU charges me a $50 service fee to pay my tuition out of pocket each semester. If I opt to utilize the payment plan, they charge me that $50 service fee plus a $38 payment plan fee, for each payment. If I pay through a student loan (which I haven't) there are no fees. Weird how you're punished for being fiscally responsible.
On the other hand, I just need to create 3rd party software that generates profit by simply being a middle man...
I'm looking forward to having this house paid off. Then I'll just have property taxes and insurance to pay. Well, that and the inevitable maintenance. Roof is getting old--that'll be cheap--NOT!
Looking back at the time when I was a renter, I can say that the benefits of homeownership do make it worthwhile, but each has it's pros and cons.
In this life we will have troubles...
maschinenbau said:I know it doesn't help your situation right now, but I've had great luck with rental houses by exclusively seeking a property being rented by the actual owner. No rental corporations, no portals, no logins, no indian call center for maintenance requests, no bullE36 M3. Just mail or venmo the money each month. Paper contract signed in person. Ability to text the owner about issues. Reasonable flexibility of terms by dealing with an actual human bean. I've even done some handyman/maintenance work in exchange for money off rent. Everybody wins. Unfortunately those opportunities are going extinct with the ever-expanding corporate ownership of housing, and the ever-dwindling amount of common decency from renters and lords alike. A little trust and respect goes a long way, but it seems the chance to show those things to each other is being taken away.
This was our situation when we moved into our house here - which we now own.
Very smooth and flexible. Communication was good. Only minor downside was that repairs or other issues (racoons in the attic once) took longer to get resolved than with a rental agency, because we were waiting for people who had more going on in their lives and didn't have a maintenance team on hand.
They loved us as tenants, because I handled most of the small "quick trip to Lowes-Depot" repairs myself. We had an agreement that we'd deduct the cost plus a bit extra for my time off the next month's rent.
The other big plus was... we now own that house and that was an easy process. Expressed interest, negotiated a stoopidly good price, got everything in order. Everyone won on that deal.
STM317 said:Too many middle men in this economy
That's where a large bulk of money hides in plain sight.
Case in point, I reached out to a small manufacturer of a few products that I need. I immediately got shuffled off to a "regional" supplier. I get that maybe they don't want to deal with someone who isn't buying 10000 widgets at a time when I want only 500. At the same time, I don't want to play a game of markup either. Look at the parts that line the shelves at the FLAPS.... Those are already 2 or 3 steps away from the manufacturer with either an end user or yet another "middle man", aka the garage, putting in said part. Each of them are going to tack on some sort of charge with each handoff.
1988RedT2 said:Roof is getting old--that'll be cheap--NOT!
I put a new concrete shake roof on my last house 23 years ago for $12,500...I'm just having the underlayment replaced on my current house now for...wait for it...$24,500. I paid off my mortgage in May of 2022 but keeping a roof over over your head, pun intended, will always be expensive.
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