OK, the 5 Day Notice.

In my state, Illinois, this is a formal statement that rent is due, and is required to give 5 days before any other legal action can be taken.

Understood there must be clear and consistently escalating consequences to a squatter, which can be particularly deadly to small rentals like us who have our own monthly bills to pay, and have to go on paying their their utilties and upkeep.

Otherwise its all too easy for tenants to fall into the habit of paying later and later every month, until inevitably the lease collapses. MOST times when a tenant doesn't have rent, they either made bad budget choices or something happened---- and they took no action over the month to correct it, such as finding other work, borrowing, credit card, whatever. Rent is the only bill you can be evicted for- however costly and stressful this is for the leaser as well as the tenant. Your housing should always be the first bill paid. So if the 1st comes and they don't have rent, things are not good.

Nobody wants to pay rent when they already have everything they want, basically a free house. And the longer they go without paying, the more insurmountable the bill looks for them from a budget standpoint..... and so this makes collecting unpaid rent an uphill climb. We want to avoid that right.

We've been using a carrot-and-stick approach. We start with a $20 coupon off rent if they pay on time. This costs us $20 per rent, but is well worth avoiding the hassle and getting the rents paid on the 1st, and it works. We have late fees for our own bills, and this avoids them, and on.

This works very well, until it doesn't.

The next card we've been using is the 5 Day Notice. Techinically it can be sent on the 1st, but I've found it more effective to say, "Please be sure the regular rent is paid by the 4th, to avoid the letter going out." The letter, which talks about court filing, fines, and on and is something obody would want.... gives them a reason to get the rent in, to avoid the letter, and this has been effective also.

Until it isn't.

Until now, the letter has only mentioned fines, and still demands just the legal rent, no discount coupon. But this leaves things vague, and at something of a loss.

As the unpaid rent bill gets higher, I feel that the temptation for the tenant to abandon the lease, or simply say they can't pay grows. Because I've seen it happen. When the letter comes and adds another $20 in rent, I don't want to cross the line to a situation where they give up or decide to bolt.

Its a tightrope, basically. All they see from their standpoint is the rent bill is becoming unreasonably high, but if there are no consequences, they don't act until the next month's rent is coming due, and by then the lease is usually trashed.

How are other rentals handling this with the notices?

Maybe it is just so much easier in my area?

If rent is late I tell them they owe a 10% late fee. Plus they have to pay fast or I will just file on them.

There is no way that I would give them a coupon for paying on time. That is the rule of the lease. Pay by this date or get a late fee. Too many late fees results in eviction.

Sorry to chime in about Los Angeles's notices--the world has gone crazy on tenant notices, changing from Day to Day. You will need to obtain the latest modifications done by Housing, you City Counsel, Mayor, State and Governor on this one.

Here, any notice given to a "tenant" that could end up in an "eviction", a duplicate notice with proof of serving must be mailed to the "Los Angeles Housing Department" within 3 days or the Notice is pulled as not properly served.

At lease signing you sign up for Clear Now or you agree to pay me an extra $20 so I can drive to my PO Box. The majority of folks follow the path of least resistance.

I stopped accepting checks, except for one guy that is buying a place from me.

This stopped the NSF problem, for the most part. I did have a tenant pay with a check to the bank and it bounced. I thought they ran those thru when they got them, but I guess this one slipped thru. That was the beginning of the end for that tenant. She never caught back up. I had to evict her.