Auction question - rather urgent

[jewelgreg]

Hi everyone. I posted this week about a Tenant that I want to evict because he is always always late.. So here is my situation. He owed for October's rent. On the 5th he received a late fee, on the 24th, i assigned a lien fee and I sent him a certified letter on the date of his auction, which is scheduled for November 18th, next week. Well here is the situation. I have talked to him several times, he keeps telling me he is coming in but never does. So on Friday I cut his lock and put a tag on the unit, BUT, on November 1st my software company charged him for November's rent and his cc accepted it. Now at the time of this charge he owed for October, late fee and a lien fee. I do not know why the software company did not take out the whole amount unless of course he did not have enough credit on his card. My contract states that once the lien fee gets applied nothing will stop the auction unless the unit is paid in full. But with the software company getting his November rent I am wondering now if I should give him a break and reschedule the auction until December 18th, but then of course he will be late another month.. I am probably anticipating more problems here than I should but I just wondered what you all would do. Thank you.

[Bighank]

Every state is different. Talk to your state SS Association as to what accepting a partial payment does. "Read the lease, know the lease, live the lease." Or talk to your lawyer as to the avenues you can pursue. Good luck.

[KrisinWA]

If you've accepted a payment the whole auction process starts over.

[SimplySpace]

Like Bighank said, I would talk to your SSA and find out the laws on that first. When in doubt, I'd err on the side of caution and pull it. However, I wouldn't tell the customer that I pulled the space from auction in hopes that they would get in gear and pay it. After the auction date, if he still hasn't paid I would let him know that it was rescheduled because of some sort of reason out of your control.

[Bighank]

You can always blame Covid, it is blamed for everything else.

[pacnwstorage]

I would tell him what happened and therefore the October rent is paid but all outstanding late fees that would be applied for November are still going to happen and you can back out the lien fee if you want to and then delay the auction by a month. I would bet there is no statute that will explain all this. To me it just delays all actions by a month.

[RandyL]

If you've accepted a payment the whole auction process starts over.

This is the action that I take, but my notices and rental agreement state differently. OP I would talk to your software company and determine what happened so it can't happen again. Then I would restart the lien process.

[Lisa T]

You need to check the default settings in your storage software and make sure payments are set to apply to "oldest first" instead of "newest first". Then try to run the card for the payment for October plus late fees. If that works, you can start over again in December.

[NCstorageguru]

Good suggestions everyone. My software asks if I take partial payments period. You may want to look into that.

[Tercelet1]

If ever you question if you can sell or not, I would not sell. In many states they need to owe at least 45 days to hit lien status but every state is different so know your state's laws. If you ever have a doubt though I would hold it. It's seldom worth being sued.

[Storman]

My lien letters state that no partial payments will be accepted, because as has been posted, taking a partial payment requires the whole process to start over. All of the information in the lien letters that are out are no longer correct.

That being said, I will accept a partial payment if there's an agreement/settlement between me and the tenant. That's a different story. I assume that in the past there were tenants that would pay a few bucks just to stop the lien process and stall for time.

[GM - StacieJ. - BSS]

I agree with Pacnwstorage, adjust the account so the payment reflects oct rent, leave all late/liens fees on account and add the November rent back on. Contact tenant and explain software glitz and that payments are applied to past due balances first making him aware of the new (Oct.) paid thru date not Nov. I myself would not run the payment again until you have made contact with the tenant. Also definitely have the settings looked at in your software if you do not have access to it, also this is one of the reasons we batch payments ourselves instead of allowing the software to batch autopay tenants. We pro rate our move outs, so if the software processes a payment at midnight and I come in the next day to find they moved out and than have to go through the process of refunding a credit card......ugh....

[AngelaESSTX]

We don't do evictions here, although I have done non-renewals before in more extreme situations. I don't mind the late payers, late fees and any other costs are extra revenue. Definitely suggest, like the others, to have your setting checked in your software for payments. On our lien notices it states partial payments will be accepted but it will NOT stop the auction process.