Credit card and ePayments are optional methods of making your monthly payments. You agreed to deliver a check to the office, paying in full, by the 15th of the month. Anything else is late, regardless of the reason.
Payments must be received by the 15th of the month.
Please (please, please) do not wait until the last minute.* Some common issues that residents run into include:
- Issues setting up an online account
- Issues setting up your bank or issuing a ePayment from your bank in the online account
- The inability to make ANOTHER ePayment because you still have one pending (it takes 4-5 days for an ePayment to clear your bank, then ours, then release)
- Not taking into account that payments you issue from your OWN bank portal generally take 7-10 days to reach us (your bank cuts a check and mails it)
- Our inability to handle a last minute credit card or ePayment request
- User-side and server-side technical issues: something is broken
None of the above are acceptable reasons for late payments under the terms of your lease.
* Note that once ePayments are set up and used successfully once, they are great for last minute payments (as long as you don’t have a payment already pending).
In most cases, there are no issues with setting up ePayments or using credit cards.
However, again, in most cases if you run into problems, the bottom line is: You agreed to pay by check, received in the office by the 15th, and anything else is optional and doesn’t absolve you of being late—though we will try to help, and to be understanding about special situations.
We say this because, every once in a while, we receive, um, sternly worded notes to the effect that “I’m having trouble setting up my online payment. It’s not working, and don’t you dare count me as late.” This typically is on, say, the 15th, late in the day (or on the 15th, on a Saturday). To which, all I can say is: “Seriously?” Ask nicely though, and, in the words of Mick Jagger: “…you might just get what you need…”