Fellow Texas apartment managers! What are your thoughts on the new laws regarding late fees?

Hey! Fellow Texas apartment managers! What are your thoughts on the new laws regarding late fees? How are you going to do them? 10% on the 4th, or break it up? Hoping for some advice...

We are going the unconventional route and we will not be changing our late fees. We will be keeping up with the why we charge what we do for late fees.

That is what I want to do. But, I am not sure how to show where the lost rent hurt us... Does that make sense?

We currently charge $50 on the 4th, and $10 per day thereafter... Witha $200 cap

Adrianne please give us the tea. I don’t have many late payers, but the ones who do will see this as a reward and I’m not currently in a position to actively evict at 87% occupied.

Chris Summers we are nit picking every thing. Most of our “cost” is associated with salaries. So for the $10 daily charge from the 5th on, if my assistant manager has to spend 30 minutes per late resident a day chasing money the $10 would cover her salary. The initial $50 charge is because there are usually more than one person involved in 3 day notices to vacate, including myself. We now have more than one person’s hourly amount involved, plus paper, ink, phone calls, text messages, emails. Some may say this is the cost of doing business but if I can directly correlate that cost to late payers and trying to collect their money than according to the new law it is permissible.
I feel your pain. I am currently at a property that is 80% occupied but we are still evicting the extreme late payers. The ones that aren’t paying aren’t helping my revenue anymore than the vacant units are

Adrianne I guess mine aren’t soooo bad. They always pay the balance between the 15-20th. No one rolls a balance into the next month. We don’t get late fees in court anyway so I’m offended that this is even a concern. Like I always tell em...”pay on the first when it’s due and you won’t even have to be concerned with late fees and me going in your home leaving embarrassing letters on your door!” Lol

Chris Summers yeah with occupancy how it is now we have been more lenient and working with people. I currently have 3 that I go to court for at the end of the month that unfortunately will roll over into September

Chris Summers I have to say I totally went and creeped your profile lol. Your honey got to get on stage and sing with Carrie ????????????. He did so good and I am so jealous!!!

you guys are awesome!!! Thank you SO MUCH for you input. We typically have about 20 late payers... maybe 4 that try to stretch it as late as possible. 10% won't amount to much for the people who want to pay on the 15th.

We are doing 10% on the 4th

We are doing 9.99% on the 6th

Thank you everyone SO much!!!

We are switching to a flat 10% but we have a grave period through the 5th and won’t charge until the 6th.

We do 8% on the 4th and 1% each day not to exceed 15%.

where did you get the 15% from?

from what I understand, max is 10%. You should really double check.

do you know since when? Our current lease has been verified and is approved by our lawyers. Who took care of everything we needed prior to making any changes.

starts September 1

You can charge more than 10% if you want but be prepared to defend it in court. You will have to justify the cost of how it affects your business. Go to the seminars that TAA has offered.

Following. From the training we had.. My understanding is no more than 10% for initial and daily late fees starting on the 4th

We are charging 9.9% on the 5th

We have instituted a 10% late fee on the 5th
and
for when an eviction is filed, we institute a $100 administrative fee for time spent processing an eviction.
About half the people who go into eviction pay themselves out of it and it has added approximately $100 in revenue relative to our former ruleset of 5% late fee and decreased overall evictions (after a short initial period of increasing it).

We are doing the 10% on the 4th.

due the first it’s late midnight. Date posted on envelope date bases paid