What builds a GREAT credit score?
Paying your bills BEFORE they are due, OR ON TIME! not during the grace period. Paying during the "grace" period LOWERS your credit score, by ALOT!

I worked very very very hard to get my Credit Score above 800. That means paying BEFORE its due, or more than the expected amount...you get the idea. Those of us who work that hard, and are that cautious with our credit scores and money, get frustrated when others show up and think the "grace" period IS the due date. its NOT! Maybe telling her that the repeated "late or grace" period payments ARE lowering YOUR credit score will help her understand. Explain that you put that in there for EMERGENCIES and if she ran into an issue such as "holiday weekends" or "tripped and sprained my ankle" type situations that receiving a payment on the 2nd or 3rd of the month would be no big whoop, and everyone can recover. To consistantly pay on the 5th, 6th and 7th is a worrysome behavior that not only puts your own credit at risk, but is in itself and irritating behavior! If she CANNOT/WILLNOT pay on the first couple of days, maybe you can call the bank and have the payment date switched to the 15th, and NOT tell her about it? It is clear, in her mind she thinks it isnt late till the 8th, and that ISNT what a grace period is for.

That being said... perhaps they are in a financial crunch. Perhaps she doesnt get paid till the 3rd, or every friday no matter what the payment date on bills. Perhaps she is a paycheck to paycheck kinda gal, and simply isnt capable of getting ahead of the game, because she has gotten so comfortable with behind the 8ball style bill keeping. Are the utilities paid?

You said these folks RENT? or are they renting with an option to buy ? Which technically means YOU still own the house, and the credit score attached to it. To lower your credit score by just 20 points can mean the difference between getting a helpful load (car, boat, equity) and being denied, or the difference between getting it at 4.5% vs 7.8%. thats a HUGE difference, even if its just for a car loan.

yes, it was truly nice of her to bring you a gift card, but her "attitude" and her "consistant late payments" (yes! they are late on the 2nd!) are making you worry, and carry some resentment. Clearly she is now screening her calls for you after the first of the month, so she wont have to address the behavior or the lack of a check. a $25 gift card doesnt make up for a 30 point fall in your credit score. Loaning a ladder IS a neighborly gesture and doesnt require being "gifted" while nice, wouldnt it be better if she SAVED the $25 dollars and tried to "get ahead" of her own financial shortcomings?

I would let her know that a "grace period" ISNT an excuse to pay LATE each month. Its built in as a courtesty. Like is a payment got held up in mail transit, or the bank was closed on the 1st, or her paycheck was held up due to a holiday weekend. Other than things like that PAY ON TIME! or renegotiate the contract to make the "pay by date" a later time in the month. Late payments make you seek her, and make her hide. Clearly she feels she is in the wrong or she wouldnt have screened your call.

Time to renegotiate with her to save you alot of worry, and her some worry about hiding from you as well. Call the bank, and have YOUR pay by date moved to the 15th. it will save you both some worry.

You are so right....but then, you are talking about normal people..

We were landlords for many years. My fiance owned his own house in a college town and we rented it, mostly to college students. We had a solid lease every time and had some good tenants and some bad ones. We heard EVERY story in the book when the rent was late.

I solved it by redoing the lease. We upped the rent and then built in a discount. IF the rent was in our hands by 5:00 p.m. the first of the month, the tenant got a discount of $100.00. The lease had only one holder. It was up to them who they shared the house with and up to them how much they charged each person. All we cared about was that the money was there the first of the month. It gave the person on the lease a taste of what we had to deal with.

There were some frantic phone calls and some long drives to our house on their part, but more often than not, the rent was in our hands the first of the month, no excuses.

You cannot be sweet when it comes to your credit and what you own. Once you have a contract with someone, it becomes business.
Put your foot down now.

It's not easy to be firm, but it's your house and your credit and until they pay it off, they play by your rules. If they use you as a credit reference, make sure that you note their late payments by reporting the date received and the date the check cleared, just like a bank would do.

The problems we encountered while renting it out were cleared up as soon as they happened, by sitting down with the tenant and discussing the situation and letting them know in a clear concise manner what was and was not acceptable.

I also made sure that we were at least a month ahead on our mortgage so if they were late, it gave us time to make sure there was $$ in our account to pay the payment.

I was still overjoyed when we sold the house. I hated being mean!

Awww! Neither one. This is just a case of both ppl trying. Don't try to judge who is more right.

• You think she's wrong for being annoyed, and expressing it.
• She thinks you're wrong for calling.

Not a big issue. Let it go. (And, she should, too.)

~ Faith

P.S.: Except I didn't notice the cussing out part, at first. That was not called for.

She sold the house, next to hers, to the people who were renting it prior. Twinks owns the mortgage on the people. She does not report their credit to the credit companies because it is a private mortgage, no banks involved, just a buyer/ seller's contract. She took 2K as a down payment.

Private mortgages have a whole different group of rules than banks and mortgage companies. She was too nice and gave a grace period of 7 days.

Twinks own mortgage needs the money from these people, to pay for her mortgage. They are late paying her all the time, so Twinks credit is in jeopardy, from her bank automatically withdrawing funds for the home she lives in now. Twinks, does not rent to these people. She sold it to them.

I think Dej hit it on the head - those folks live paycheck to paycheck. Maybe her payday does not fall just before the first all that often. I remember those days, when the grace period saved my hide, too.

This kind of sale - when the owner sells instead of the bank - is called a land contract where I live. And they usually do it because either the buyer has bad credit, no credit or can't afford full asking price of the house. Usually, they will land contract until the buyer builds up their credit score and/or pays down the amount owed on the house.


another reason it's done is the bank won't loan on the house. We looked at one place, big old farm in MI, years ago, with several acres. We could have gotten a loan except we did not have a big enough down payment. House had a bad roof, and we had to come up with 30% down. Couldn't do it. The owners could have done an L/c until we paid off 1/3 but they were not interested.

No matter how you slice it, Twinks you did this person a favor just selling her the house - grace period or no - and she needs to keep that in mind. I can only say, maybe ask if she's having some problem with the paying on the first, explain your side and what *grace period* means to you.

I think I'll just let her attitude slide. I see her in church every week and I don't want to cause problems.

BUT, I will call the mortgage company and see if I can move the payment due date.

And yes, I checked my checking acct ... I ODed ... again.

Thanks for that clarification, Lady. I even understand it better now! Except we're not next-door neighbors anymore (actually, it was just around the corner) because we moved into my Dad's house early this spring.

Your mortgage company should let you change the due date without a problem. That should be a big help to you.

Does your bank have the policy where you can have any insufficient fund checks put on your credit card which would eliminate the overdraft worry for you?

gmi

gmi, my bank charges very little for my ODs. I only had to pay $1.14 this time. I slid some money from savings into checking to take care of things until payday.

Thanks for your responses, everyone. I'm over it now! Just had to spout!

Spout away Twinks...That situation stinks..