Rent Collection Checklist

Pull each active lease and confirm rent amount, due date, grace period, and any pass-throughs (utilities, parking, pet rent). Month-to-month conversions and unsigned renewals are common gotchas — check the addenda folder before charging.

Late fees are statute-capped in many states (e.g., California requires fees be a reasonable estimate of damages; Texas caps at 12% for properties with 4+ units). Verify your fee schedule complies before assessing — a non-compliant fee can void the entire late-fee provision in court.

Post the monthly rent charge plus any pass-throughs to each tenant ledger before the due date so the balance reflects what is actually owed. Tenants disputing pass-through amounts at the time of payment is the most common posting gotcha — itemize on the ledger, not just the rent line.

Email or portal-message tenants with the amount due, due date, and accepted payment methods. Soft pre-due reminders cut delinquency materially and rarely annoy tenants who already plan to pay on time.

Verify routing/account numbers haven't changed since last cycle, especially for tenants who recently switched banks. ACH return fees fall on the tenant per most leases, but a returned payment still cascades into late-fee territory if not caught quickly.

For tenants who moved in this cycle, confirm they've activated their AppFolio / Buildium / Rent Manager portal account and tested a login. First-month payment failures are disproportionately portal-onboarding failures, not unwillingness to pay.

Cross-check expected rent against bank deposits and portal receipts. A 'paid' status in the portal is not the same as funds settled in the operating account — ACH can return up to 60 days after deposit for some return codes.

Apply payments same-day so balances stay accurate. Watch for partial payments — most state laws and most leases let the landlord apply partials to oldest charges first, but check yours before applying to current rent.

Most state real estate commissions require deposit to broker trust within three business days of receipt. Tenant payments do not go to operating — commingling, even briefly, is a license violation in nearly every state.

Pull the bank-settlement report and reconcile against the portal's batch summary. NSF and R01-coded returns typically post within 2 business days; chargebacks for unauthorized debits can land weeks later.

Generate the aged-receivables report from AppFolio / Buildium / Rent Manager once the grace period ends. Reconcile against the bank one more time before assessing fees — a payment delayed in ACH limbo will produce a wrongly-charged late fee that you have to reverse.

Use your state's prescribed notice form and service method (personal service, posting, certified mail with return receipt — varies by state). Assess the late fee on the ledger at the same time. Notice periods vary widely: 3 days in California and Texas, 14 days in Massachusetts, 30 days in some jurisdictions.

Document the response — whether by email, portal message, phone call, or silence — and save the artifact to the tenant file. Silence after notice service is itself a response and starts the clock on filing for possession in most states.

A payment plan must be in writing, signed by the tenant, and reference the underlying lease — an oral plan typically waives the landlord's right to file on the original notice without the broker realizing it. Keep terms short (30-60 days), require automatic ACH for plan payments, and have the broker counter-sign.

Hand the broker the full file: ledger, lease and addenda, served notice with proof of service, and any tenant communication. Most evictions get dismissed for paperwork defects, not on the merits — a clean file is the difference between a 30-day case and a 90-day one.

Forward the broker-reviewed file to the eviction attorney with the owner's authorization to proceed. Confirm the attorney's filing-fee invoice will be paid from the owner's reserve, not from trust — billing eviction costs to the trust account is a common audit citation.

Three-way reconciliation: bank statement, trust ledger, individual tenant balances. The three must match to the penny. State commissions audit this monthly reconciliation in any complaint investigation, and unreconciled trust accounts are the fastest path to license suspension.

Run owner statements showing rent collected, management fees, maintenance pass-throughs, and net disbursement. Hold disbursements only after the reconciliation is signed off — disbursing on unreconciled funds risks bouncing an owner check if a tenant ACH later returns.

Send each owner the AR aging for their property — current, 30-day, 60-day, 90+. Owners who see aging buckets monthly engage with collections decisions; owners who only see net disbursements are surprised when a tenant goes to eviction.