Rent check over-drawing my bank account...AGAIN -- who's right?

In My Humble Opinion
1

ok, this is my situation. I live in an apartment with two roommates. I pay all of the bills and rent, and collect 2/3 of the share from them on a monthly basis, and then make the complete final payments. One of my roommates is very good about getting my payments to me on time, so he is not a factor in this situation. My other roommate, on the other hand, seems to believe that he can avoid the issue by disappearing. He went to see his parents in Ohio a couple of days before Christmas and will be there until after New Year’s. I asked him to leave me a check for the rent and bills before he left - he did leave the bill money, but left a note saying that he would mail me a rent check when he got to Ohio.

So…the rent is due tomorrow morning, and I still don’t have a rent check from him! I do not currently have sufficient funds in my account to cover his share of the rent. I just called him and he said that he FORGOT to mail it, and would get one out right away. My landlord can be a reasonable person, but when it comes to rent, he is a robot. “Pay the full amount on the first of the month via a check, just like the lease says,” is the only answer he will give. I explained the situation to him, and told him that if he cashed the check, it would bounce and I would be stuck with a $25 overdrawn fee. He said that this is something to work out with my roommates, but that it is just as much my responsibility as it is his to have the full amount to him by the 1st.

Now, I should mention that this is the second time that this situation has happened. The first time, my landlord, knowing that the check would bounce, cashed it anyway. My bank still pays out a bounced check, but charges me a $25 fee. If this same situation happens again, who should be responsible for this fee? Last time, none of the 3 of us (myself, my landlord and my roommate) would own up to being liable for that fee. My landlord said that he was just holding up to his end of the deal, as stated in the lease, and my roommate said that it was MY fault for giving him a bad check, despite the fact that it was HIS fault it was a bad check in the first place. I finally talked my roommate down to paying half of it, but my landlord refused to pay even one penny, and I was stuck paying the other half, making me feel cheated.

If my landlord decides to go cash another bad check, and I get another $25 fee, who should be responsible for paying it?

2

I’d definitely be sticking it to the roomie for the 25 bucks. Yes, you’re depositing the check (I hesitate to use the word “bad” since it appears that you have overdraft protection) but what does he think the alternative is? Not paying at all?

To be honest, I’d be seeking ways to get him out. He has no motivation as it is to worry too much about getting it to you on time, because you’re clearly going to cover it - you can’t all sink for his failure to swim.

I don’t think your landlord should be in any way responsible for the fee. You give him a check, he is entirely within his rights to cash it - especially since he knows it’s going to clear.

3

You. Remitting a check which you know does not have sufficient funds to cover it is called “kiting” and is illegal. Sucks, but there it is. I might suggest you think about evicting the delinquent roommate.

4

IMHO, your roommate is morally responsible, but you are legally responsible. I agree with the idea of letting him know he is responsible, and that if it happens again, he has to find a new place to live. If he won’t pay the fee, he is a total jerk.

5

God have I been there! My roommate in college, otherwise pretty cool, was not big on paying bills on time. We alternated months writing the rent check. When it was her turn to pay, I always had my check to her on time. When it was my turn to pay, no such luck. I sent the rent check in when she paid me. The way our lease was worded, the landlord withheld 4 $25 late fees from our security deposit.

Are all of your names on the lease? What are the consequences if the rent is late? I would advise against continuing to bounce checks, because that goes directy against your personal credit rating and (here in NC) can lead to criminal charges. Your best bet may be to take the hit against a communal lease and split it among all roommates. Sucks for the 3rd roommate, but the peer pressure should prevent future occurrences. I know sometimes leases have really draconian penalties for late payment, so that may not be the way to go depending on circumstances.

If you do wind up with a bounced check fee, the late roommate should pay it. I can’t imagine why this is even in question. If he doesn’t own up to that responsibility he is officially a Bad Roommate.

6

I’m seriously thinking about giving out a proposition that the duties of paying the rent to my landlord be turned over to my roommate. Since HE is the irresponsible one, he should be the one dealing with this crap directly with my landlord, not me. I hate having to apologize to my landlord for giving him a bad check, or telling him that he has to wait to cash it, when I am not the one who can’t manage my money.

At the very least, at least this time around I still have the “I will mail you a rent check when I get to Ohio” note, as well as the postmarked date of today (at least I hope so!) on the envelope of the check he mails, as evidence that he is the one being the stiffer…eviction isn’t out of the question at this point, but would probably be more trouble than it is worth

7

I recommend against doing that - if he continues to be irresponsible, you will end up suffering for it. If he can’t even get it to you, why would you trust him with your and your roommates money?

Bad, bad idea, IMHO. And if it isn’t worth evicting him over, I would say it’s not worth stressing over either - if it isn’t that big a deal to you, continue the current arrangement you have. Unfortunately, it might cost you an extra 25 bucks a month in rent.

8

The landlord definitely isn’t responsible.

On paper, you are, as you’re the one writing the bad check. Morally it’s the roomie’s fault. You wouldn’t have to write a bad rent check if he’d pay his share of the rent on time.

Stick him with the overdraft fee, and none of this “can I pay you off gradually, I don’t have $25 right now” stuff. If your good roomie agrees, inform Bad Roomie that the next time this happens, he’s outta there. Which one of you is scarier, you or the Good Roomie? Whichever one of you who can make the toughest “I’m Not Bluffing” face is the one that needs to confront him.

9

All 3 of our names are on it. The landlord comes to my building in person to collect a check from me on the 1st of every month. When I talked to him earlier today and explained the situation, he didn’t really seem to care whether the check was good or not, as long as he got it in the full amount on the due date. The first time we went through this, I suggested that I pay him for my and my other roommate’s share, and let my “bad” roommate pay him on his own for that month, but he wouldn’t hear it. I don’t really know what the consequences are for not paying, since I’ve never not paid.

I personally can’t see why anyone other than my bad roommate would be responsible either, but I’ve already read a couple of posts saying just that. The situation I am put in is either break the lease agreement by not giving him a check at all, or giving him a check which I know isn’t good, which is also illegal. I really SHOULDN’T be in that situation at all, and I am being punished for it. My bad roommate has it easy by being 500 miles away from this choice I have to make tomorrow. Hopefully this meeting tomorrow will include a reasonable discussion between myself and my landlord about how I avoid having to take the blame for his problems.

10

When you write a check, you’re saying that the money is available. Your landlord is well within his rights to deposit it immediately. Why should he have to wait for his money? He’s fulfilled contractual end of the bargain.What would the landlord do if you didn’t pay on the first? Would he evict you? I know what he’s telling you - but what his actions will be is a different matter.

Your roommate, OTOH, is jerking you around. If he isn’t on the lease, I’d get him out of there as soon as you can find another roommate. If you keep in as a roomie, I’d tell him he owes a “late fee” any time his part of the expenses isn’t paid on time. Hopefully he’ll wise up.

StG

11

Read your lease. There should be some wording in there about consequences for late payment.

Also, do you have any resources to borrow the money? I realize with the holiday things are probably not looking good. But a credit card cash advance or payday loan, maybe even pawning something, is better than repeated bounced checks. Those will affect your credit rating in a big way, resulting in things like higher mortgage rates years down the road. And (morally) your roommate should reimburse you for any interest or fees you incurred to cover his slackness.

If all of your names are on the lease, why do you specifically write the check?

Your situation is not uncommon. A lot of college students/ young adults have some rough spots as people get used to the fact people have very different approaches to money.

Good luck, I’m sure this is no fun. Hope you guys can all get this straightened out to start 2005 on a better note.

12

I had a rather lengthy reply written out that PROMPTLY GOT EATEN. Damn hamsters. Are their handlers on vacation and forgot to leave out the hamster kibble???

I’m not even going to try to rewrite the whole thing. Instead I’ll give you the important points:

  1. You’re liable for the fee, for the reasons already stated but also because you, of your own free will, took it upon yourself to be in control of the rent check. With awesome power comes awesome responsibility and all that.

  2. If you aren’t going to evict the roommate, then you need to come up with a plan to ensure it doesn’t happen again. This could involve sitting on your roommate every month until he hands over a check. OR it could involve a simple solution- a communal checking account. Request $50 from each roommate (it’ll be returned when they vacate the apartment for good), add in your own $50, go to the bank and open an account with all your names on it. EVERY pay period, each of you IMMEDIATELY deposits a set amount into the account. Biweekly? $200 each time. Weekly? $100 each time (with the occasional week off). Divvie up the responsibility for writing the various checks… one month you write the rent check, Roomie A writes the electric bill payment, Roomie B writes the cable bill payment. Get one of those nifty carbon-copy check books so each payment can be verified. The checkbook NEVER leaves the apartment- keep it in a communal spot but somewhere visitors don’t have access. The ONLY things you’re writing checks for are the bills… absolutely no exceptions.

  3. You’re letting your roommate walk all over you. He knows he can get away with it. The idea is to make the consequences of his misbehavior so unbearable that he will do whatever necessary to avoid it in the future. By setting up a communal account, you’re 1) setting up the possibility that he’s screwing up his own credit, which he may care a bit more for, and 2) setting up the possiblity that he’s screwing up your other roomie’s credit, who may not be so forgiving.

13

just to answer everyone’s questions at once…

again, all 3 of our names are on the lease.

The special checking account is a good idea, but I can only see disaster happening with it. While I DO get all of our bills and rent paid, I have enough other problems with the checking account I already have to deal with a second one, and I don’t trust my roommates with it either.

The reason that I collect the roommates $ and write one check is two-fold. First of all, for whatever reasons he has, my landlord INSISTS on getting one check for the full amount every month. He will not accept 3 checks, or a 2/3 check. I ended up with the responsiblity because…well…I’m the most responsible. When we moved in, both of my roommates were in college, and I had a fulltime job. Right now, I’m still the only one with a fulltime job.

If anybody is going to tell the bad roommate to move out, it had BETTER be the good roommate, because he’s the one who was friends with him, and chose him as our 3rd roommate.

Is it written in law that when a check is written, it is good immediately, even if I tell my landlord to wait a couple days before depositing it? If I write a check for the date that I know I will have the funds (I’ll be able to cover for my roommate when my next paycheck is deposited, probably next wednesday), rather than today’s date, does that change the assumption that it is good from the moment I hand it over to my landlord?

As for what my lease says, the Landlord has 5 days to give written notice about failure to pay rent on time, and if not corrected within the next 5 days, our Lease will be cancelled. In other words, if I don’t pay the rent within 10 days, we’ll all be kicked out. I think there is going to be some major ass kicking going on as soon as Bad Roommate returns to NYC.

14

Now that Check21 has gone into effect, there is almost no float period at all - and yes, a check that is written is immediately valid.

Here’s a link explaining Check21 - by immediately, I do mean immediately - some stores will automatically process their checks electronically, eliminating the delay between writing a check and having it come out of your account.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5880440/

15

Oh, and even a post-dated check is useless. Here’s a Wisconsin law, but it’s pretty widespread:

http://www.wdfi.org/ymm/tip_of_month/sept16.htm

16

Have them pay their portion weekly. That way, if one is late, its a smaller amount to cover.
Or have your delinquent roommate pay you a month in advance. Tell him he has to pay the current month and next month now, then just make him stay a month ahead, if he’s late, you have what’s due.
You’ll still have to use a cattle prod to get it, I’m sure, but it won’t be ruining your credit rating.

17

This sounds like the right approach, and you need Good Roommate to back you up on this. There should be harsh words, along the lines of “You are never again going to be given the chance to behave like such an utterly worthless scumbag.” Bottom line: henceforth, you need to have BR’s rent in hand at least a week before it’s needed.

18

for those still following this dilemna, it sounds like it is going to end with a happy ending for me. I called up Bad Roommate and told him to call the Landlord and explain why I am not going to give him a check tomorrow. He did so, and Landlord decided to be human about it this time and will collect the check from me on Wednesday. By then the check should have reached me in the mail, and if not, at least I’ll have my next paycheck in my account.

It’s not over yet though. picunurse provided the best advice yet, and I am going to heed it. From now on, Bad Roommate is going to pay ME his rent portion one month in advance. He is also not to mail me his rent, but hand it to me in person, even if he is going to be away for a couple of weeks. This approach seems much less messy than eviction.

19

See Reply #24.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=293293&highlight=item

20

Make him agree to a ‘late fee’ if he doesn’t give you his check at the appropiate time.