How can we pay our landlord?

December 28, 2023 4:44 PM

We are having a surprisingly hard time getting money to our landlord. Maybe you know the answer? This is in the US.

Here are the issues with trying to pay the landlord:
High crime - mailboxes are getting broken into, so we can't mail him a check safely.
Slow or no mail service - a check sent out from our bank takes an extra 3 weeks to get to the recipient. So the funds leave our account, but the receiver does not receive the check for about a month.
Wire transfers cost money - would prefer to not take this route
ACH transfers not possible - our bank does not do ACH transfers to outside accounts owned by someone else.
Zelle, VenMo, Paypal - have a max cap lower than what our rent is.

Our current system is I hide the rent check on the property and he comes to pick it up at 3am because he works the night shift. This is not great for anyone. He's a nice guy, we love the place, and we want to make this work - it's just very mom and pop.

Can you suggest something else?

posted by Toddles to Work & Money (31 answers total)

Hide 12 post-dated cheques for him to pick up all at once?
posted by kate4914 at 4:48 PM on December 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

Using something like venmo, could you split it into two payments, either sending them on separate weeks or from each of your own accounts?
posted by beyond_pink at 4:50 PM on December 28, 2023 [13 favorites]

Perhaps a lockbox would be secure enough, if it could be fastened down. Share the combination with the landlord and no one else. I'd consider discussing this solution with the landlord first.
posted by SPrintF at 4:51 PM on December 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

When I used Zelle I broke the payment up in two over like a week and then after about three times doing that the cap was raise automatically once it knew the transactions were safe.
posted by Mr. Papagiorgio at 4:52 PM on December 28, 2023 [13 favorites]

Unless I’m missing something, PayPal allows max transfers between 10k and 60k per transaction for verified accounts, and for Venmo it’s 60k per week once you complete identity verification.
posted by sucre at 4:53 PM on December 28, 2023 [9 favorites]

I pay multiple rents per month split into a few Zelle transactions because of the limits.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 5:04 PM on December 28, 2023

Two Venmos transfers gets you to 10k.
posted by jcworth at 5:06 PM on December 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Can he get a PO Box? The smallest size costs less than $5 a month, and most places have 24/7 access. It kind of sucks to ask tenants to jump through hoops like doing multiple payments per month as people are suggesting here.
posted by music for skeletons at 5:16 PM on December 28, 2023 [13 favorites]

When I rented a garage a few years ago, the owner used Cozy - now Apartments.com Rent Collection - which was apparently free for them, and didn't cost me anything to set up to pay directly online through my bank. It seemed to work well. Avail and Zenlord Pro are similar rental payment and management services that might work as well. This is something your landlord would need to initiate, though.

However, as previously mentioned, both PayPal and Venmo's payment maximums for verified accounts are rather high, up to $60k (with possible rolling limits) on both networks. Are you sure you're verified on both of those, since the transfer limits are far lower for unverified accounts? If you do have verified accounts, there's a bit of "how much are we actually talking about here?" if you're hitting maxes.
posted by eschatfische at 5:31 PM on December 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

+1 lockbox like realtors use. The little box area should be big enough for a check.
posted by MadMadam at 5:38 PM on December 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you’re using Zelle with a debit card rather than a bank that participates with Zelle directly, there are limits in place from the debit card that are likely much lower than Zelle’s. Your bank may be able to help adjust this, or open an account with a bank that participates with Zelle.

You could also deposit your rent check at your landlord’s bank directly into his account. He can either give you deposit slips or the last few digits of his account number so that the teller can deposit it into the correct account.

Another option is opening an account at your landlord’s bank and transferring money into his account from yours via online banking. This is doable with the online banking software that the bank I work at and many smaller banks use, if his bank is a larger national bank ymmv.
posted by needs more cowbell at 5:53 PM on December 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

If he banks nearby you can probably deposit it directly into his account via check (write “for deposit only” rather than endorsing, no account at the same bank needed; just need the account number). I used to do this at one point for rent.
posted by advil at 6:00 PM on December 28, 2023 [16 favorites]

Mail the check from another location, like a post office box or your workplace.

Pay a bill or bills of his online.

Create a joint bank account within your own bank that you share with the landlord. You deposit money by transferring directly from your account, instantly I hope, and then he withdraws it, transfers to his own account, writes checks with it, uses it to pay a credit card, etc. Even if there's a time lag for him to transfer the money to himself, he can see it and remove it from the account quickly.
posted by amtho at 6:01 PM on December 28, 2023

When my landlady three homes ago was traveling internationally for most of my lease period, I did what advil suggested above — she gave me her bank and routing numbers and I would go to her bank and deposit a check directly into her account every month. It was safe and easy. The bankers were really helpful.
posted by mochapickle at 6:08 PM on December 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

Walk to the post office to put the check in the mail.

Most of the mailboxes in my NYC neighborhood were replaced with tamper-proof ones at least five years ago--first they replaced the pull down handle with a slot, and then the slot got teeth like "do not reverse" spikes that prevented envelopes from being fished out. That seemed to solve rent checks being stolen from mailboxes.

You may also want to contemplate bank-shopping. Astonishingly, USAA doesn't withdraw the money from the account until the bill pay check is deposited (they returned to not opening accounts for the general public, though, so they probably won't work).

There is also Bilt, which I know little about other than that it is possible to get them to mail a check to a random landlord.
posted by hoyland at 6:24 PM on December 28, 2023

Does he have a physical location where you could slip it under his door?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:54 PM on December 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Or, find a bank that will do what you want, fund the account with your exact rent and ACH it to your landlord.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:56 PM on December 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I deposit all my checks through my banking app on my phone. Just need pics of the front and back. It's probably not strictly compliant with the TOS, but he might be able to deposit checks that you just securely message him pics of, without sending the physical check.
posted by agentofselection at 7:22 PM on December 28, 2023

Seconding apartments.com. It's easy to set up, and free for both the landlord and tenant. It doesn't have a lot of features but it does everything you need for payments.
posted by CleverClover at 7:46 PM on December 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Like Mr. Papagiorgio says, for the first couple of months on Zelle you just break up the rent payment into a couple of transactions (or however many it takes) and pretty quickly Zelle will raise your limit enough so you can pay an entire month's rent in one transaction. If you have this as an option there's no reason to mess around with physical checks or to get your landlord set up on a third party website.
posted by theory at 7:51 PM on December 28, 2023

We receive rent for a rental unit through a service provided by Zillow. It takes a few days to go through, but there is no charge for the landlord or tenant.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:01 PM on December 28, 2023

Nthing the recommendation to open up a new bank account at a bank/credit union with more flexible ACH tranfer policies for this purpose.

I've seen mixed reviews about it, but the BILT credit card can be used to pay rent.
posted by oceano at 9:30 PM on December 28, 2023

N+1-thing the advice to spend some time bank shopping. This is something that you should be able to do without involving an app or other third party.
posted by Metasyntactic at 11:28 PM on December 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

Here's a couple ideas:

1. We have a rental property, and we use avail to collect rent. It doesn't cost anything unless you want 24 hour processing, in which case it costs $7/month. That cost is borne by the landlord, but you could probably work out a way to make them whole if that's a sticking point. Their free tier processes rent payments within 7 days of payment, and doesn't cost landlords anything to use.

2. If you can pay rent per paycheck, assuming you get paid 2x/month, see if that's a possibility - half on the mid-month paycheck and half on the end-of-month. In that case you can use any payment service that would work.
posted by pdb at 12:07 AM on December 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you're worried about mailboxes getting broken into, can you drop the check off at the post office (or hand it directly to the mail carrier, if that works with your schedule)?
posted by mskyle at 5:38 AM on December 29, 2023

It appears the mailbox-crime issue may be at the landlord's mailbox as well as the renter's mailbox. The landlord really should be the one to figure it out but the least risky option is splitting the rent payment in 2 via Zelle or Venmo. As mentioned above, the payment service may very well raise the cap for you, once a few regular payments are made this way.
posted by nkknkk at 5:49 AM on December 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

My landlord would not take multiple Zelle transactions and did not believe me (or the bank) that there was a limit until the bank established trustworthiness between us. My rent is in the thousands and the cap was around $500 so we would have needed five transactions to make one rent payment and my landlord insisted I was trying to scam him somehow (🙄). So I switched banks. Chase Bank had a Zelle cap and Wells Fargo didn't when I struggled with this same issue in 2019. Try another bank.
posted by twelve cent archie at 6:24 AM on December 29, 2023

Check with your local tenant's right organization, but it's your landlord's job to provide a way to pay rent.
posted by theora55 at 8:35 AM on December 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

1) Get an additional bank account somewhere with modern bill pay options. It's unusual not to have this.

2) Is it your mailbox or the landlord's that's not secure? Either way, your landlord should be informed / making a reasonable effort here.

3) I previously had my landlord supply me with deposit slips for their account at a bank a couple blocks away and I would fill them out and put in the drop box with my rent check. Weird, but worked fine if your landlord is willing to trust you with their account information.
posted by momus_window at 11:29 AM on December 29, 2023

My tenant and I are using Apple Cash with great success. The first time he sent the money, his bank flagged it and he had to call them to confirm he and the transaction were legitimate - only took a few minutes. I receive his Apple Cash pretty much instantly and it generates a statement showing the date and time, amount, his name, the status (completed) and a transaction ID. I take a screenshot and text it to him as a receipt. When I move the money from my Apple Cash into the account associated with it, I have the option to pay a small fee if I want to be able to access the money immediately or I can choose the option to have it available in 2-3 days for no fee which is what I pick.
posted by LiverOdor at 8:57 PM on December 29, 2023

Western Union can probably provide your solution.
posted by yclipse at 12:45 PM on December 31, 2023