Electronic Deposit Of Rents
I have two units in Ma that I would like to set up the ability for the tennants to transfer thier rents to a deposit only account that I could transfer the funds out of on a monthly basis to the LLC. When I approached the bank about the possiblity they stated the best thing to do is have the tennants schedule a monthly payment to the LLC. This means the bank will cut a paper check and mail it to the LLC and then I will take it back to the bank for deposit. There has to be a better way?? :-?
Why not have the tenants send you a check every month made payable to the LLC. Then deposit it into the LLC Bank account? What are you trying to achieve?
[addsig]
I am trying provide the ability for the tenants to transfer funds from thier accounts via the bank to the LLC account much like you would pay say credit card online by transfering funds from your bank account. This would get the money in the LLC account faster and hopefully eliminate any followup phone calls when the rent is a late.
just to clarify
I am trying to eliminate the need for the tenants to mail a check. I would like for them to transfer the funds to the LLC monthly. Hopefully this will eliminate late payments, or at least eliminate " the check is the mail" excuse.
thanks for all the help
JJean,
Let me know if you find a way around this. I went to the bank to try to accomplish the same thing. The problem that I discovered is that you will not know who the money came from. You will only know the date and amount posted to your account.
The bank suppested setting up an account for each tenant to transfer the money into. This is not viable because I have about 6 tenants that would use this feature. Too much to manage.
Robert
cl312,
I have a question about what you setup. When the tenant makes the deposit into your account, does it tell you who made the deposit or just the amount?
Robert
Alla
Thanks for the tip I will check with Washington Mutual about an account. Do you have one account for all the units or one account per unit?
Thanks again
Robert,
I can see only the amount. It works for me right now because I have have only two rentals and amounts are different.
JJean,
I have one account for both rentals.
Alla
Many banks now have online billpay features, allowing them to transfer funds to any account they have the numbers for. (Wachovia does, and its free!)
This means that if you are willing to trust your tenant with the account numbers to an account, they can, through their online billpay, transfer funds directly into your LLC account.
I think I would want them to sign papers limiting their use of my bank account numbers to this one purpose.
I have been thinking about doing this with some tenants who are online, but have not taken any steps.
Dan[ Edited by Apprentice2Him on Date 02/04/2005 ]
Giving someone your account numbers opens you up to a huge liability issue. People can now take an account number, and have checks made up within a few minutes (they go to office max and buy software to print home checks.) They then can go shopping, using your funds. If someone is doing this, and has not gotten burned they are very fortunate.
Banks do offer a system to auto debit checking accounts. I found a company called Vanco who chargees .50 a transaction. That made a lot of sense to me. So, for .50, I auto debit all of my renters accounts. Amazingly enough, it is on the day that they get paid, so I make sure that I get paid...
I do not work for Vanco, though have found them to be the cheapest. Do a web search under vanco and you should find them.
Yep! billpay still means that THEY, the tenant, are responsible for setting it up and may cancel at any point. A direct withdrawal never exposes your account and they cannot prevent it without a written notice to you, which gives you heads up if they plan on not paying. If they need to (for one reason or another) skip a month, they can request that they are not charged that month electronically IF they bring payment for that month with them when making the request.
For those planning on a large number of transactions of this kind, look further. $0.50 is too much. There are companies that will work with you for a flat monthly fee of around $5-6... This stuff is getting easier and easier every day!
Thank you all for your responses. I will follow up on your suggestions. I too do not favor giving joint ownership to an account with my name/LLC on it . I am however interested in a Paypal or Vanco type solution. I checked with the bank and (Bank of America) and could not set up a deposit only joint account. Even if I set one up outside of the LLC accounts but yet had the LLC have joint ownership, ie kind of a holding account, the LLC/me would be liable for anything that went wrong. It only takes one bad tenant and it is not worth the risk in my opinion.
Thanks
James