Forced Rental Payment Fees - Is this allowed?
May 3, 2015 7:00 PM   Subscribe

My landlord just sent out a notice saying that we're going to be required to pay our rent online, through a service that will charge a fee. Is this allowed?

My landlord just sent out a notice saying starting June 1st, they'll be requiring that we pay our rent online. They've sent out a notice in the past that the option is now available, but I've never done it, because there's an extra fee to process the payment. The website that they intend us to use to pay charges a $3 fee (for an eCheck) or 2.75% (for a credit card).

Is this allowed? Are they allowed to mandate that we use a payment method that requires more money than our rent actually is? Their defense is "This fee goes to our processor not to us." For the record, the rent is to be paid directly from their company website.

Two things that may matter:

There's a notice at the bottom saying "Some of you may not have a computer or traditional checking account or have difficulties using a computer don't worry we are happy to accommodate you on an individual basis so just give us a call."

There was a notice that went out two months ago that I never got (apparently it came by email? I don't know, I've never gotten an email from them - my neighbor told me she got the notice) that said that we could no longer drop our check into the box in our complex, but that it had to be mailed. Since I didn't know about it, I've continued putting my check in the box and it's still been getting cashed. This all seems sort of dodgy, like they were trying to make paying rent a bigger pain in the ass so that people would just default to using the online method, but that didn't work so now they just require it.
posted by dithmer to Law & Government (11 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
What location are you in?
posted by jeather at 7:05 PM on May 3, 2015


Where do you live?
posted by Lemurrhea at 7:06 PM on May 3, 2015


Response by poster: Oops. Forgot that part. I'm in Los Angeles.
posted by dithmer at 7:06 PM on May 3, 2015


I'm in San Diego and I'm charged a $3 processing fee when I pay my rent online directly from my bank account. My complex charges $40-60 for paying with credit cards but they're phasing that out this summer.
posted by Hermione Granger at 7:11 PM on May 3, 2015


It looks like civil code 1947.3 says it isn't legal:
1947.3. (a) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), a landlord or a landlord's agent shall allow a tenant to pay rent and deposit of security by at least one form of payment that is neither cash nor electronic funds transfer.
[...]
(d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the tenant and landlord or agent to mutually agree that rent payments may be made in cash or by electronic funds transfer, so long as another form of payment is also authorized, subject to the requirements of subdivision (a).
(e) A waiver of the provisions of this section is contrary to public policy, and is void and unenforceable.
posted by jeather at 7:12 PM on May 3, 2015 [6 favorites]


They're not forcing you to pay online -- they said you can call them and work out other arrangements. So I would try that first.
posted by J. Wilson at 7:13 PM on May 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


But yeah I really doubt it would be legal for them to force you to.
posted by J. Wilson at 7:14 PM on May 3, 2015


I have worked for a rental management company. I don't think it's necessarily shady, although it can be very inconvenient. We don't do the online thing. But--for $3 each, I probably wouldn't have been able to get it through my boss (who was notoriously cheap and property owners usually are), but I would have happily just eaten that to remove the manual processing step that turned month-end into a total nightmare. The "oh I put it in the box" people who didn't really. The "oh it got lost in the mail" people who didn't really mail it, or who put the address down wrong and it arrives late but they don't want to pay the late fees. The having to check the box 8 times a day for the last few days of the month because people wouldn't come inside. It can grind an office to a halt.

I suspect, but you'd need to ask a real lawyer, that if you've already signed a lease, that they technically couldn't mandate it unless they left themselves wiggle room in the lease itself. (That whole thing about cash being legal tender for all debts, if nothing else.) But they also aren't compelled to renew your lease every time it comes up, you know? Whether it's worth making a fuss might depend on whether you'd make a fuss if they came back to you next time it was up and announced your rent had gone up $3/mo. In technical terms it's probably a bad thing for them to have done, but--I get why they'd do it (zomg magic month-end heeeeeaven) and I'd rather have that for a landlord than the one I currently have, who's so disorganized he called me this week to ask if my *February* rent check cleared because he can't remember if he deposited it. Not a hill I'd consider worth dying on.
posted by Sequence at 7:20 PM on May 3, 2015 [5 favorites]


"But they also aren't compelled to renew your lease every time it comes up, y'know?"

In Los Angeles, yes, yes they are.

OP, call the tenant hotline at the CA.gov website, I think it is the Consumer Affairs division, since state law trumps local in CA for landlord tenant. My guess is, no, they can not force you to do this.
posted by jbenben at 7:29 PM on May 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you mail in your rent, you have to pay postage each time, and you have to pay for paper checks and envelopes as well. So I think the idea of there being small fees associated with paying your rent that aren't going directly to the landlord but that you still end up paying out of pocket is not unreasonable. The amount here seems way too small to argue over, frankly. That said, it sounds like they are happy to make other arrangements, so I would just call and say "Hey, we don't want to do the online thing and will be happy to mail our checks instead. Thanks!"
posted by rainbowbrite at 12:05 PM on May 4, 2015


Response by poster: Thanks everyone! The money isn't enough for me to really make a fuss, so I'll likely just end up paying it. I just wanted to be justifiably annoyed. :)
posted by dithmer at 9:42 PM on May 4, 2015


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