Setting Late Fees within the Lease Agreement: TurboTenant’s online platform is designed to streamline your rental process, but please note that the late fee stipulated within the lease itself is not editable. If you wish to specify a particular late fee amount or method within your lease, you can utilize the "Provisions" section to add custom clauses. Ensure you clearly state the exact late fee you intend to charge.
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Say farewell to calendar reminders, uncomfortable tenant conversations, or closely monitoring your mailbox or Venmo feed! This guide is about TurboTenant's feature allowing landlords to implement automatic late fees on monthly rent payments set up through our platform. This feature operates independently of any late fees stipulated in your actual lease agreement.
Simply designate a monthly past-due date and a late fee amount in the recurring payment that you create and then, if your tenant doesn’t pay on time, we’ll automatically send the late fee and notify your tenant for you. You’ll get updated when the notification is sent and if further action is necessary.
Please note: It is not currently possible to apply auto late fees to one-time charges or monthly charges other than rent at this time. Additionally, it's not currently possible to create daily late fees at this time. If a daily late fee is necessary, you will need to create a manual charge using the "create new" option for that tenant. As a note, and to help stay organized, we recommend labeling each manual daily late fee with the date it corresponds to.
Don’t have rent payments set up yet? Here’s our guide on how you can get started with collecting rent on TurboTenant. The directions below apply only to users who already have rent payments ready to go.
Adding Auto Late Fees to a New Rent Charge
Step 1. From your TurboTenant Landlord Dashboard, click on the “Payments” tab in the left-hand column:
Step 2 - In the upper right-hand corner of the screen, click on the “Create Charge” button:
Step 3 - Select the lease for which you want to apply the automatic late fee charge. Click on “Monthly Charge” next, as you are setting up this fee for a recurring rent charge. Click “Next.”
Step 4 - Create your rent charge by filling out the form accordingly. To turn auto late fees on, mark “Yes” under the “Set Automatic Late Fee?” question:
Step 5 - At this point, you can determine if the late fee type will be a flat fee or a percentage of the unpaid rent. Toggle to your desired fee type:
For a flat fee, enter the dollar amount your tenant will be charged each time they pay rent late (e.g., $50).
For a percentage fee, enter the percentage of the unpaid rent amount (e.g., 5% of $1,000 rent would be a $50 late fee).
Step 6 - From the dropdown menu under “Apply Late Fee,” select the number of days after which rent is considered late:
Step 7 - Click “Next,” then review your charge on the following page. If everything looks correct, click on “Create Monthly Charge.” Your automatic late fee on rent is now in place!
Adding Auto Late Fees to an Existing Rent Charge
Step 1 - From your TurboTenant Landlord Dashboard, click on the “Leases” tab in the left-hand column:
Step 2 - Your existing or upcoming leases will be listed on this page. Click on the lease for which you want to add the automatic late fee:
Step 3 - Click on the “Payments” tab, located underneath the lease name next to the “Summary” tab. Find the upcoming rent charge for which you want to apply an automatic late fee and click on its “Edit” pencil icon:
Step 4 - On the “Edit Charge” page, scroll toward the bottom and mark “Yes” under the “Set Automatic Late Fee?” section:
Step 5 - At this point, you can determine if the late fee type will be a flat fee or a percentage of the unpaid rent. Toggle to your desired fee type:
For a flat fee, enter the dollar amount your tenant will be charged each time they pay rent late (e.g., $50).
For a percentage fee, enter the percentage of the unpaid rent amount (e.g., 5% of $1,000 rent would be a $50 late fee).
Step 6 - From the dropdown menu under “Apply Late Fee,” select the number of days after which rent is considered late:
Step 7 - Click “Next” and then review your changes on the following page. If everything looks right, click on “Save Changes.” Your automatic late fee for rent is now in place on future rent charges!
Modifying an Automatic Late Fee
It’s easy to make adjustments to your auto late fees on rent charges. Here’s how:
Step 1 - From your TurboTenant Landlord Dashboard, click on the “Leases” tab in the left-hand column:
Step 2 - Your existing or upcoming leases are listed on this page. Click on the lease for which you want to modify or edit the automatic late fee:
Step 3 - Click on the “Payments” tab, located underneath the lease name next to the “Summary” tab. Find the monthly rent charge for which you want to edit or modify an automatic late fee and click on its “Edit” pencil icon:
Step 4 - On the “Edit Charge” page, scroll down to the “Set Automatic Late Fee?” section. From here, you can make adjustments to the fee type, amount, or when the late fee is charged:
Step 5 - Click “Next” and then review your changes on the following page. If everything looks right, click on “Save Changes.” Your automatic late fee for rent is now updated.
Removing an Automatic Late Fee
If you find that you no longer want or need to have this feature in place, you can turn off automatic late fees on a charge at any time. Here’s how:
Step 1 - From your TurboTenant Landlord Dashboard, click on the “Leases” tab in the left-hand column:
Step 2 - Your existing or upcoming leases will be listed on this page. Click on the lease for which you want to remove the automatic late fee:
Step 3 - Click on the “Payments” tab, located underneath the lease name next to the “Summary” tab. Find the monthly rent charge for which you want to delete an automatic late fee and click on its “Edit” pencil icon:
Step 4 - On the “Edit Charge” page, scroll toward the bottom and mark “No” under the “Set Automatic Late Fee?” section:
Step 5 - Click “Next” and then review your changes on the following page. If everything looks right, click on “Save Changes.” Your automatic late fee for rent is no longer active.
Deleting a Sent Late Fee Charge
Let’s say your tenant pays your late fee charge offline and you need to delete it from TurboTenant so they don't get charged twice. No sweat! If a late fee is generated and marked as unpaid, you can delete it as you would any other normal charge.
Here’s an article that further elaborates on this process and how you can delete sent charges to your tenants to solve this problem.
Setting Late Fees within the Lease Agreement
TurboTenant’s online platform is designed to streamline your rental process, but please note that the late fee stipulated within the lease itself is not editable. If you wish to specify a particular late fee amount or method within your lease, you can utilize the "Provisions" section to add custom clauses. Ensure you clearly state the exact late fee you intend to charge.
TurboTip: The automatic late fees feature is distinct from any late fee clauses in your TurboTenant Lease Agreement. If you wish to specify or change late fee details in your lease, use the "Provisions" section for custom clauses.
Still have questions? Reach out to our Support Team via chat or by email at [email protected].