Landlord chasing rent - AIBU?

[missverstaendnis]

I am feeling rather upset after receiving an email last night from my landlord informing me that my rent was overdue for payment (due on the 1st) and to make arrangements ASAP for payment.

For background. For the last 5 years of living in this house my rent has been on a monthly standing order for the 1st of the month. This has ALWAYS been paid, have never been late to pay rent EVER.
Fast forward to this month as the 1st falls on a Saturday, DDs/ Standing Orders get paid out following working day (tomorrow, the 3rd).
I have never wasted a thought on this nor has it ever been raised as an issue.

Called the landlord to inform of this to which I was told her needs to pay his own outgoing on the 1st and that rent needs to be paid on a 1st of each month. I wasn't believed that payment will automatically go out Monday morning.

So I have cancelled my standing order and made a transfer last night to him.
Now it looks like it was too late to actually cancel the standing order from leaving my account tonight, so I will be catapulted into my overdraft.

Who is being unreasonable here -
landlord for requesting payment on a weekend and chasing me on it on a Saturday night with a harsh email,
or me for not monitoring that the 1st fell on a non-banking day and not cancelling the standing order sooner to arrange for the transfer on the morning of the 1st?

OK, feeling quite sheepish about it now but would have been nice of him to approach it in a different manner.
Chasing on the actual payment due date (not late) on a Saturday night with the way it was worded just wasn't a nice experience.

I appreciate that if his mortgage went out yesterday and he was anxious about not seeing my payment, this was also not nice for him.

But there are ways to go about it, and a message to ask me to check if there are any issues with my bank/ SO would have been much nicer than a harsh 'overdue payment' email.

I actually went into my online banking and have a breakdown of when the 1st fell on a weekend making the SO a day late, the very scenario that has never been raised in previous' years. On average this has occurred twice a year.
I can only assume LL thought I deliberately didn't pay after a recent rent increase (which I had confirmed back as accepted in writing).

Your landlord is a cunt for being a money-grabbing landlord.

If the date your council tax is due falls on weekend it doesn’t debit until the next working day. The same as virtually every other DD or SO.

In fact a DD can’t be taken early without notice. If the payment due date falls at a weekend or on a Bank Holiday the recipient is obliged to debit the account just after the due date, not before, unless they notify the person in advance of a change of date.

A SO is usually processed on the same day but if you look at the t&cs of most banks/payment systems they will say you should allow up to 5 working days for it to clear.

So in either case if the OPs needs it to be cleared and in their account by the first they need to give op notice of a change in payment date.

Also the 1st of the months goes all the way up to 23:59:59 and only once it hits 00:00:00 on the 2nd would they be late. So they landlord shouldn’t have been chasing for “late” payment when the OP was not late.

People are muddling how DDs and Standing Orders work and their purpose…..and which should be adjusted to arrive ahead of time and which will happen after time, if a usual payment date falls on a weekend or BH.

Standing orders are used to pay people and organised by the person paying. Typically wages are paid by SO. If you owe money for anything which has a date, if you pay by SO it is your responsibility to make sure the money is received on or before the due date. This is why is you are paid by SO, your company will pay you AHEAD of pay date if the usual date falls at weekend or BH. It would not be acceptable for a firm to pay workers 2 days late due to weekend or BH. It is not acceptable to pay rent late for same reason. Wages or rent are the individual’s incomes and they need to know they will have the money by the date it is due.

DDs are taken by the receiving company. The company sets them up. Here, they take the money on the due date or the NEXT available working day. This is why DDs for council tax etc may go out later if there is a weekend or BH. The company who receives money in this way KNOWS the DD system doesn’t take early, and EXPECTS to get the money a day or two later when the pay date is at weekend or BH.

Given rents are payable by SO and not DD, much like wages, it is up to the tenant to ensure payment happens on or BEFORE the due date. Therefore OP was unreasonable not to ensure payment happened and look ahead to realise there was a weekend.

At the same time, if the email really was harsh and nasty, rather than just businesslike and pointing out rent hadn’t been paid and reminding tenant that it must be paid on due date or before, this was probably unnecessary. I suspect it was simply businesslike and OP was overly sensitive to it. The fact she has now arranged another payment and might face double payment is a separate issue to the one of whether payment could be late. She should certainly expect the LL to refund one of the payments - no problem there.

The reason LL is likely to have sent a firm and businesslike email is so that this doesn’t happen again. Rent day will occur on BH or over weekend again. The LL wasn’t to make clear that the due date is the due date and that means before or on the date, and not later. Without the clear email, what’s happened could occur again.

As others say, one way to avoid this issue if SOs cannot be sent to happen sooner if a weekend is in place, is simply to arrange the payment date to be 3 or 4 days sooner, so it always arrives in time.

As an employee, I wouldn’t be pleased if my employer didn’t pay me on payday, and I had to wait 2 or even 3 days if there was a BH for my wages. There could be all kinds of things I needed to spend on that weekend and I was committed to. It is the same situation for this LL.

I find some of the responses on here really odd. Of course a Direct Debit won't be paid at the weekend.

I'm a landlord, not professional, I have one house I let out.

This weekend delayed payment happens all the time with my tenants. It's the way Direct Debits work; they don't get paid on weekends.

Your landlord was wrong to chase you for the rent. Whatever, his problem was it wasn't yours to sort out. He should just have waited until the first working day for the money to go into his account.

You weren't late with your rent and he had a bloody cheek to expect you to fiddle around with your bank account in order to pay the rent at the weekend.

@Thebestwaytoscareatory yes but you're talking about direct debts and standing orders. If you've set up a direct debit with the council they'll know the terms. If you pay your council tax with no direct debit they'd class it as late if it wasn't paid on the due date.

There was nothing wrong with him chasing on the evening - especially as she's now mentioned it was the first month with a rent increase

*I appreciate that if his mortgage went out yesterday and he was anxious about not seeing my payment, this was also not nice for him.

But there are ways to go about it, and a message to ask me to check if there are any issues with my bank/ SO would have been much nicer than a harsh 'overdue payment' email.*

Completely. To send a harsh email is over the top in my opinion. Anything could have happened, a quick message just to query it and check things are all okay, should have been sent. It's not a nice way to behave towards you.

We rent and the rental agency asked us to set up the direct debit early so the transfer was never late

Ideally yes but sometimes unexpected situations do crop up. I'm a LL and lost my job very unexpectedly this year when the company I worked for went into liquidation and none of us were paid the salaries owed that month. It just happened to be the same month I had a couple of big bills to pay and things were definitely tight, so had my tenants not paid either I would have got quite anxious.

Saying that though I would never chase my tenants' payment until it was at least 5 working days late, as I understand bank delays and other situations can happen, so I think OP's LL has been too quick to chase really - waiting until Monday to see if it clears on the next working day would have at least made sense.

Request to have the extra payment sent back to you asap.

If they specifically asked you to set up your rent payment as a standing order (rather than you just transferring on the 1st) then that’s kind of on them.

Otherwise, generally speaking, I’d say YABU to not pay your rent by the date due.

Maybe when the late payments have been happening in the past it’s actually been pissing them off, while you’ve thought as it’s never mentioned they’re fine with it.

Re: covering their own outgoings, I’m surprised they wouldn’t have your payment date set a few days ahead of any subsequent outgoings their end.

If it doesn’t make any practical difference to you anyway, perhaps just set up the standing order for two days earlier, so if it falls on a weekend again there won’t be any issue.

Apparently 70% of posters on this thread think that is a totally unreasonable thing to do and that in fact it’s fine to pay your bills after the due date!

@fernz That is tough situation, but tenants also have tough situations happen and usually have far fewer financial safety nets than most landlords.

@GoldenElephant But if that is made clear at the beginning, you can agree or not agree to it.

I've alway paid rent by SO and not once has any landlord had an issue with the payment being later because of a weekend/ bank holiday! Tote landlord sounds like a prick!

How direct debits work has got absolutely nothing to do with this thread. Posters are not understanding that private individuals set up standing orders, not direct debits. And if you have a bill, such as your rent, due on a particular day, then you should set up the standing order three working days in advance, to ensure it arrives in the destination bank account in good time.

Yanbu.
If he's not raised it before then how would u know its an issue.
Ask him to transfer the additional payment back ASAP on Monday as you've gone overdrawn and need the payment and tell him you'll set up the SO for the 27th in future so its always paid by the 1st even when the SO date is a weekend/long weekend/Easter weekend.

It’s late because it is a rent payment which needs to be paid via standing order as set up by the tenant, as opposed to a mortgage direct debit which is set up by the lending bank.

I set up direct debits and standing orders so I can forget about the payment. I wouldn't have given much thought on which day it left the account either. Surely if they have requested this way of paying then they have to accept its pending over a weekend.

If a DD is due on x of the month, and that day falls on a weekend, the DD is always taken on the first working day afterwards.

The LL should know this, so it's him/her that's being unreasonable.

Then same thing would apply to any DDs s/he has due out that day.

This thread, and OP’s issue, is nothing to do with direct debits.

Agree about the time issue mentioned - I once had a LL years back who would send rude, screechy text messages around 10am on rent due date:

Why are you like this! Your rent should have been paid, it’s late

etc.

I had to point out I had all fucking day to pay it thank you!!!!

This thread is nothing to do with direct debits.

Tenants need to set up a standing order to pay their rent by a specified due date.

The two are not the same.

This.

If your landlord wanted to make sure it's always in his account on 1st of each month, he should have requested the SO be set up on an earlier date in the tenancy agreement. At the beginning of the tenancy. Not now.

My rent is due on 21st of each month, but our landlord stated in the tenancy agreement that the SO be set up for 17th of each month to cover the times when 21st falls on a bank holiday or weekend.

I don't know but I have a curious urge to mention direct debits just to see if GoldenElephant actually explodes.

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