Hi Wade, I recognise your original post was from a number of months ago & therefore, you have probably sorted out your issue but if you are still interested, here is a reason why direct debit is the preferred way to pay for landlords. I now insist on this & make it a condition of renting the property due to my experience with my investment property over the past 10 years. The short reason is that the tenant is able to rely on having a place to come home to every day/week/fortnight/month to live in & the owner should be able to rely on having the rent for this place paid excactly on the day it is due every day/week/fortnight/month but unfortunately the only way to ensure this happens is a direct debit due to human nature & human error.
The long reason is, my bank takes my mortagage payment for my investment property out of my account every week on a Friday. Therefore, I need the rent to hit my account on the same Friday each week to cover this however I don’t mind fortnightly or monthly payments as I can adjust my budget for any frequency.
I manage the rental property myself as I live in the same suburb & used to explain this to tenants & ask that if they choose use direct deposit, they need to do this on the Wednesday so it can be processed & hit my account on the Friday – the rent is due on Saturdays. I have had too many problems with teants forgetting to deposit on the Wednesday & either do it late, so it ends up hitting my bank account on the Monday or Tuesday or following Wednesday which means they have stayed in the property for 3 or 4 or 5 days without paying for it (this becomes a problem for a whole host of other reasons which are different topics such as giving notice & exiting a rental property).
Some have forgotten to pay altogether or a bit short that week so end up being 1 week or more in arrears. I think some of them think that because they have paid a bond, it’s no big deal however these are the same tenants whom cause damage (not maliciously or intentionally) usually by doing careless things & they don’t get all of their bond back anyway after the repairs have been paid for.
The reasons/excuses I have been given for paying after the due date are: I had to work overtime & was too tired to remember, I got busy, I was sick, etc. Well guess what? If there was a direct debit in place, they don’t have to remember so it’s easier for them too. Can you imagine if I gave those excuses to my bank for being late paying my mortgage? It might sound harsh to some tenants but you have to pay BEFORE you stay & I am providing a home for them every week/forntnight/month so it is only fair that they pay for the priviledge every week/fortnight/month by the due date. If all tenants considered paying their rent a priority & never stuffed up with this, I would feel differently but I need to protect my interests & minimise risk. Interestingly, the best tenants I have had, never had a problem with paying via direct debit, they did not incur any extra costs & they were able to stop the payments easily when they stopped paying rent. I don’t understand what the drama is with doing it this way. Now I know if someone objects to this, they are not the tenant I want.