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?

Lies, bank's don't make payments early in these circumstances, they ALWAYS make the payment on the next working day

I work in banking
if his mortgage is also due on the 1st his mortgage payment won’t go out until 3rd so he was bu to suggest it would affect his mortgage.

We pay rent to housing association by direct debit. It hasn’t gone out of bank yet and will go out on Monday.
That's what happens with direct debits your land lord is obviously having money worries but no excuse and this will have happened previously. If second payment goes out ask for it back by bank transfer and if not immediate I would ask for interest and any bank fees you incurred.

@WisherWood
standing orders cannot be changed to be flexible and go out early depending on if the day falls on a weekend or not

you pick a date and it goes on that date. If the date falls on a weekend or bank holiday it goes on the next working day. The entire Uk banking system is the same

Matilda, I think you’ll find that when people are due to receive their salary on X date, firms will bring that forward if the date falls at the weekend. The same will be the case for the government paying benefits.

Can other people confirm this please. It is extremely unusual and poor practice if a business to expect their employees to wait a further 2 or possibly 3 days for their wages. Matilda, who are you working for? I suspect it isn’t one of the large employers.

People on benefits, would you think it was acceptable to not receive your benefit payment until the Monday or Tuesday after a weekend or BH, if the normal pay day fell at the weekend?

Any landlord who does not have a few months worth of rent saves up as a buffer is an idiot.

^This. What if you had a plumbing emergency today or your boiler broke down? His fuss over 2 days suggests he wouldn't be able to afford to sort anything in his property should something break down. He should have funds set aside for unexpected eventualities.
Do make sure you contact him first thing tomorrow once your standing order has gone out and insist it's paid back immediately. If you can do a bank transfer in 5 minutes so can he.

Is it a direct debit or a standing order? Surely if it is a DD it is up to his bank to request it? I pay everything by DD. If pay day is on a a weekend the money comes in on the Friday but if the mortgage is due at the weekend it goes out on the Monday.

Direct Debit goes out when the other side asks for it whereas Standing Orders go out when you say.

*standing order

Op
you need to email him and explain it has now been sent twice and ask him to send the duplicate payment straight back on Monday. But check first on Monday to make sure the standing order definitely went after you cancelled it.
why should you pay overdraft interest all month on the extra payment.

I’d give you a week’s grace. My tenant is currently 13 days late and says he can’t pay til 7th because his bank card was stolen and he had to set up a new account. The card incident happened in July, so I think he’s taking the piss. My agent wants me to give notice if it’s late next month. We’ll see.

Resevoir, I agree that a LL who doesn’t have some cash in reserve is an idiot, but this isn’t an excuse for late payment. This kind of argument about LLs having lots of cash or the fact they should be keeping lots in reserve and can therefore take the ‘hit’ of late payment or even should be willing to, because they are lucky to be LLs, whilst tenants have it hard and therefore should be entitled to make late payments, really misses the point.

This is where some of the comments on this thread are heading. People seem to want to present this as a ‘greedy landlord’ who should just be glad to get rent at any point, vs poor old tenant - deserves to be in the rented property even if they don’t pay, kind of thing. I realise it’s only a few heading in this direction….but these kind of threads often do go in that direction and suggest LLs should never comment on late or unpaid rent, because the fact they own a 2nd property means they forfeit any rights to expecting the product they provide is paid for fully or on time.

I have had dealings with numerous letting agents over the years as both a tenant and as a LL. In all cases, SO was encouraged as a method of payment. In all cases, everyone also understood that rents were to be paid and could be expected to be received by the due date. When the rent date fell at a weekend, when I was a tenant, we simply arranged a one-off payment to arrive in time. As a LL, rents have almost always arrived before the weekend or BH. There have been a couple of times when they haven’t. As a LL, I wouldn’t personally be following up unless they hadn’t arrived on the next working day, but if the payment date is clearly set, then a polite reminder about due dates doesn’t seem wrong to me.

This. If he can't cover his own bills if he receives the rent a couple of days late, what's he going to do if your boiler or oven suddenly need replacing?

Landlords are businesses. So they (normally) expect to be paid the same way any other business is paid (ie on the Monday if the monthly payment date falls on a weekend).

Employees are not businesses and so expect to be paid on the Friday before if the monthly payment falls on a weekend.

Trying to say that employees being paid and landlords being paid are the same is nonsense.

Well done you.

Okay. I am taking on board what people are saying here.

Yes, I agree that LLs are businesses and not quite the same as employees or benefits recipients. Yes, I accept that most businesses will expect to be paid the first working day after a weekend or BH.

I’m changing my view in light of what people have said. I think the LL probably was unreasonable to send the email when they did and that if rent arrives on Monday, that is fine. Emailing on Tuesday or after close of banking on Monday would be reasonable but not before.

In reality, I think few LLs would actually do what this LL did, given the weekend situation but wait until the next working day had passed. I apologise to Op and think she was not in the wrong. Her only ‘error’ was to be extra diligent and try to make the payment at the weekend which has resulted in 2 payments going out….but this was not an error as such, simply keenness to do the right thing, which due to banking timings will result in double payment. I’m sure the LL will refund the 2nd payment without any difficulty.

I accept my understanding hasn’t been right and have revised my thinking on this. Fortunately, as I said before, I have never contacted a tenant about ‘late’ payment over a weekend, and only ever after at least one (and often more than one) working day has passed. Plus, I will mention that I have always been sympathetic to explanations for late payment. However, I have been wrong in my thinking about payments before/after weekend and BH and apologise.

I'm a landlord, as a PP through circumstance, not as a job.

I received tenants rent via standing order yesterday morning however my monthly direct debits won't go out until tomorrow with TSB.

I always pay mine a few days before it is due to avoid the issues though as it is a once off your LL is unreasonable IMO.

Shit happens, things are slightly delayed, he should be aware of this and give himself a week between payments.

Realistically he should have a buffer fund set up against his property, how would he repair unexpected issues in the property without a buffer fund?

I'd feel very insecure renting from a landlord on such a tight budget.

The bank cannot debit your account the day before a dd is due. It's usually in most terms and conditions.

Also contact the bank on Monday and cancel the s/o and they will stop it debiting your account. Set-up a new one for a couple of days before the 1st.

Yes, I should have written 'standing order' not DD.

However, it makes no difference the same rules apply, neither of them pays out at the weekends.

Why on earth should someone have to set up a standing order to go into the landlord's bank account three days earlier than required. It's completely unnecessary.

Under normal circumstances a SO will be paid into a bank account on the specified day, there's absolutely no reason for the LL to receive his rent three days early.

And what happens if the tenant doesn't get paid their salary three days before the rent is due? Do they have to go into an overdraft at their bank every month just so the LL isn't slightly inconvenienced every time the rent's due date falls at the weekend?

The LL should manage his finances better if he's so desperate for money he can't wait a couple of days every so often.

If the LL has no money in hand how the hell would he cope if the boiler in the rental property suddenly stopped working or one of the kitchen appliances needed replacing?

Absolutely ridiculous.

If the LL has no money in hand how the hell would he cope if the boiler in the rental property suddenly stopped working or one of the kitchen appliances needed replacing?
Exactly.
He sounds like a cowboy landlord who needs to sort his life out.
I know you're there a longtime but is there other properties available for rent?
His attitude stinks.
I don't have a SO or DD set up.
I pay it monthly through bank transfer on the nearest Friday to the due date.

To be honest, the fact they want the money is no indication of if they are hard to for cash or not. They might need the rent to pay for stuff related to property, to spend on a luxury cruise, or to fuel a hefty savings pot. It doesn’t matter.

When rent is late (and we have afreed it wasn’t in this case and won’t be if received on Monday) a LL is perfectly entitled to point it out and say it shouldn’t happen again. This doesn’t mean they desperately need the money...and if they do or don’t isn’t relevant to whether they should be paid or time or if they should insist on it. It’s quite simply what the contractual agreement is.

The fact this LL has made contact in this case wasn’t right. But it doesn’t mean he/she doesn’t have back-up cash to repair the property. It tells us nothing about their finances. And if they were absolutely loaded it would be irrelevant. The finances of the LL have zero bearing in whether tenants should expect to pay on time or not.

Love it when people are so confident they know what they're talking about when they're completely wrong, it's laughable to try and suggest my employer has 26,000 standing orders to pay salaries, which could vary at any given month due to tax changes, deductions, overtime and many other combinations 🤣🤣 laughing at the thought of some poor sod manually adjusting them all (salaries and benefits are paid by BACS, in a bulk CVS file)

I wonder if your landlord has cash flow problems if they're suddenly complaining rent isn't paid at the weekend 🤔

The landlord is complaining that rent hasn’t been paid by its due date.

Monday is 3rd October.

The rent was due on the 1st October.

Therefore, if it is paid two days later, this means it is two days late.