Dear Landlord,
I really appreciate you letting me rent this place. I’ve been taking good care of it, and it’s great to have a place to sleep that isn’t my office.
Now, I just have one complaint…
Would you cash my checks already? It’s almost the middle of the month and my rent check has yet to clear. I know it really shouldn’t matter, but it’s just a pet-peeve of mine. In November you waited nearly 3 weeks to cash my check! Obviously you have a lot more cash around than I do…
I know I could send you money orders…but those are a hassle to go to the post office to get, and plus they cost me extra as well.
That’s all. Please cash faster.
Regards,
Your Tenant ~ debtkid
Anyone else have this issue with people?
Am I the only one that gets bugged by this?
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Why would that be a problem?
I guess if you had to live in your office for months you would have a clue..
Ugh this new landlord of mine waited 3 weeks or so before cashing my January check. He has yet to cash this month’s check – I share your annoyance! If I had an interest-earning checking account, though…
I might know the answer to this one….. While you may pay your rent on time, I would wager a lot of your neighbors don’t. There isn’t a terrific reason to go to the bank constantly with two or three checks, when the interest rates are very low/non-existent. I know my bank charges my business account per transaction, so I bunch them as well.
It bugs me too, simply because my checkbook becomes a bit more difficult to balance. My sons’ daycare takes a while to cash checks and for one fundraiser where one of my friends had bought some chocolates, she jokingly threatened to put a stop payment on her check because it was taking so long. But as Jake mentioned, I’m sure I’d feel differently if I had an interest-earning account. Hm, I might have to look into that.
It doesn’t bother me when it takes a few weeks for someone to cash a check. My threshold is having a check fail to clear by the time I get the second statement following me writing it.
Several years ago our business checking account had a restriction where we couldn’t make more than 5 deposits per month. I think that restriction has since been lifted. I’m still in the habit of only making one deposit per week, to not exceed that limit. Even with all this considered, if I was your landlord, it wouldn’t take me 3 weeks to cash your check!
As for the other side of this transaction — I know that whenever a check I write doesn’t clear in a timely manner, I always start to get nervous that it’s been lost in the mail. The worst case scenario being, someone has intercepted the check and is going to do some of that trickery people can do to drain money out of our checking account. That’s why people not cashing checks right away can be annoying!
pay with a money order
problem solved
or balance checkbook
problem solved
pay with money order
pay fee + trip to store
checkbook is balanced
not a problem, just a pet peeve
I think legally a check is good up to six months after it’s been written. Used to be that way, anyway, or maybe that was just an urban legend.
Are you saying that having the money sitting in your account tempts you to spend it and maybe thus flirt with overdrawing? I personally don’t think three weeks is all that long a time to wait to cash a check. But I guess I can see how it can be annoying.
This would drive me up the wall, I would be continuously paranoid about spending money to make sure that I didn’t accidentally forget the check hadn’t cleared. I think paying with the money order might not be a bad idea.
Hey for all of those who were thinking of getting an interest bearing checking account…hurry up already. I use ING (hit me up if you need a referral to get the bonus) and had them send my checks to the office for rent payment (before they started letting me pay by credit card).
While the check not clearing is a minor annoyance I think if you balance the checkbook as soon as you write the check (or at the end of the week if daily is not your style) then this should not be an issue. Write the check and deduct the money from your account. Then you work off what is left…don’t try to use the money that ‘might’ still be there because the check has not been cashed yet.
I’m sure it’s because either;
a. the business account is restricted in the number of deposits it can make.
b. the bank in inconvenient for the landlord to go to, and therefore they only make a trip a couple of times a month.
c. they wait until all of the rent checks come in and make one deposit.
You could ask them. I would get the money order. I got one @ 7-11 a couple of weeks ago and it only cost $1. Plus I got to get a cheap Slurpee! What could be a better way to spend the afternoon?
is there anyway you can pay with a debit card, or will they take straight up cash? otherwise, money order is your only other option…. you can also get them from safeway or 7-11… if it’s causing you this much grief I would spend the 50 cents for the piece of mind. When I was renting, i would pay with a money order for this reason… however, I had a bank at the time that allowed me 5 free money orders per month so it wasn’t a huge hassle.
@zintradi – no, no way to pay with a debit card. I could pay in cash, but that seems dangerous (through the mail), not that I haven’t done that before.
I’ve been sold on this solution:
7-11 – cheap money orders
Why? Well, there is one by my house, and I haven’t had a slurpee in ages.
Yay, way to turn a negative into a positive for me guys….thanks!
I would just be sure to stash those money order stubs in case they “don’t” get it.
Everytime I write a check, take money from an ATM, use a credit card etc. I the same day put it in one of my spreadsheets which I use to know how much money I have. I’ve been doing this since before there was online access to bank accounts and keep doing it because of the kind of problem you mention here. So it’s never a problem for me. And if you can pay out of an interest bearing account it would be a bonus. I pay our rent using a direct online transfer (called BPay in Australia) to the realtor. When I lived in the US I had my bank send the checks as a standing order.
DebtKid, if I was your landlord, you wouldn’t have that problem. As soon as I get the rent check from my tenant, I go to straight to the bank. If she pays me on the 1st, the check is in the bank on the 1st.
Ditto that SingleGuyMoney. The day I get a check is the day it gets deposited. Bam, slam, money in the bank.
So Debt Kid by the same reasoning shouldn’t the day you write the check be the day you subtract it from your balance? Bam, slam, money out of your account?
I don’t mind at all if someone holds onto my check before cashing it. I’m earning interest in the meantime.
Personally I think to spend money on money orders and slurpees is a big waste. OK maybe not a big waste but a small waste, and you don’t need to waste any money. It’s just not necessary. Especially since you’re not bouncing checks because of this. I do understand it’s annoying (I also start getting paranoid about the LL not receiving the check and hitting me with a big fee). And anyway check cashing places tend to have the cheapest money orders; I think I pay about 50 cents when I need it for an Ebay purchase.
It’s also harder for you to prove the money order was cashed if you need to. Instead of just checking your statement and getting a copy of the cancelled check (assuming they don’t put those in your statement), you have to trace it through the money order company.
This is a solution in search of a problem.
Eek! I’m prob’ly one of the guilty ones! I file checks in a safe place till they’ve all come in at the end of the month, then make ONE trip (not a gerjillion) to the credit union each month.
I’m not collecting from renters, though. If I were, I’d sure do what SingleGuyMoney would: cash that little fella before the renter gets a chance to overdraw his checking account!
But from your own point of view…hey! No skin off your teeth. Get yourself an interest-bearing checking account — if you can get into a credit union, most have no-fee, no-minimum-deposit interest-bearing checking accounts. Then, the longer the landlord’s check stays on the float, the more pennies your checking account makes for you.
If you enter the check in a Quickenoid program or Excel at the time you write it, you’ll know how much is available in your account exclusive of the pending check, and that’s the figure that matters anyway.
Amen to that! Because then you risk spending that money in your account which means by the time they do cash it, you could be short. It’s so inconsiderate. and you’re right shows that clearly money is no object to them, but to us poor renters (sigh) it often is. Hurry up landlords! Cash those checks please!!
My landlord holds my rent checks for 3,4 and even 5 months before cashing them (I think they know the 6 month rule) It is very frustrating to have to watch the account to see when a check that old clears. Yes we subtract it out of our account when we pay it but your only assuming they have received it because they are not calling and asking where the rent check is. It is just frustrating balancing the account. If they want me to pay my rent by the first or get a late fee then cash the check at least in the same month its due!!!
Hey DebtKid,
If you have online billpay, you could set up your landlord as a payee. Once you pay him, it automatically is deducted out of your checking account even if he doesn’t deposit it. You lose the interest on that money (if you are getting any), but it keeps the checking account straight. Best of luck!
all y'all's need to shut up. sincerely, no one cares, morons.
oops. lol. my bad. i didn't think i could post w/out signing up. i guess that teaches me for hitting the 'submit comment' button.
I have the same problem and here it is the 14th and my check still isn’t cashed from the 1st. What is the deal anyway?