Partial Rent Payments - Posted by John

Real Estate Investing Real Estate Law
1

Posted by William Bronchick on February 05, 2002 at 09:37:48:

This is a quite a long Q, and unfortunately, we don’t have time to answer stuff like this in full.

However, the general answer is that partial rent payments mean the rent is not paid, which means the tenant must pay a late fee (if in the lease) and may be in default.

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Partial Rent Payments - Posted by John

Posted by John on February 03, 2002 at 03:11:39:

What happens when a tenant submits partial rent payments? I am new to investing and am unsure how to proceed with a problem I inherited.

I have a tenant in a building in CA that I recently purchased that claims his rent should not be in the amount on the records. I claim it is a partial payment. The records show a lease expiration at the end of October and therefore the rental went from $940/month to the month-to-month rate of $1105 (New leases are $1020/month). (The tenant produced a copy of a letter (not found in the files)claiming he had made several attempts to speak to the former property manager about extending the 9 month lease to 12 months (because of recent job loss and hardship) but was rebuffed by an assistant.

A three day notice was given on January 15 for shortages in November, December and January. The tenant continued to pay the old amount of $940.

1.) The tenant claims the lack of a negative response to the letter means approval of his proposal.

2.) The tenant claims that he should have been notified before of previous shortages if his proposal was not accepted and therefore he assumed it had and no partial payment was made. (no notices were given prior to January 15)

3.) When told that he had been given written notice of the increase coming in November, the tenant stated that he was not even given a chance to sign a new lease because of the actions of the assistant. He claims she told him on October 28 and October 30 that it was too late to renew because their monthly reporting was done. (it was a property management company). The tenant says that that is why he wrote the letter to the manager because he could not get satisfaction from the assistant.

  1. The tenant contends rent should be $940 or at most the $1020 had he had an opportunity to complete a lease and objects to the $1105 rate. He claims he would have made other housing arrangements had he known differently and relied on the former manager’s lack of action to his detriment.

Questions:

Does the lack of notification of shortages in Novemeber and December validate the tenants claim? (There were no notices given in November and December)

Can I collect the shortages for those months?

Does the tenant have a right to a retroactive lease that he claims was denied him by the assistant?

Please help!

Thanks