{"id":105,"date":"2018-10-03T10:52:05","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T17:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/?p=105"},"modified":"2020-02-08T13:56:01","modified_gmt":"2020-02-08T21:56:01","slug":"the-default-clause-is-much-more-important-than-the-late-fee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/the-default-clause-is-much-more-important-than-the-late-fee\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenants: negotiate the default clause, not the late fee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a lease tip for small tenants: don’t argue about the late fee, but read the default clause carefully. Why? It’s not worth your time to negotiate a 10% late fee down to 5%. If you spend $400 of your time or your lawyer’s time arguing with the landlord and the monthly rent is $2000, then you have to be late with the rent four times before you break even.\u00a0 Being late with the rent is a bad way to make up your business’s overhead costs.
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You have a lot more to lose if the landlord can lock you out for a default. Why negotiate default and not the late charge? If you don’t pay on time and incur a late fee, you’re still in business. But if the landlord can lock you out without warning if you don’t pay on time, you’re out of business. Insist on a notice and a cure period before the landlord can change the locks. If you don’t, and if the landlord takes a dislike to you, then the landlord can call a minor breach a default, lock the doors on your business, leaving you without income but on the hook to pay rent until the landlord finds another tenant. <\/span><\/p>\n

Propose a “three-strikes” clause: for the first two late payments in a 12-month period, the landlord must send you a notice of default and allow you a few days to pay the back rent and a late charge. Only with the third strike – the third late payment – can the landlord lock you out.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a lease tip for small tenants: don’t argue about the late fee, but read the default clause carefully. Why? It’s not worth your time to negotiate a 10% late fee down to 5%. If you spend $400 of your time or your lawyer’s time arguing with the landlord and the monthly rent is $2000, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leasing","category-real-estate"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alterman.law\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}