I live in Pensacola, Florida in a 4 bedroom 4 bathroom apartment. I reside with 3 roommates, two of which are on the lease. I myself along with one of my roommates are not on the lease. We all moved in the apartment at the same time and I established a verbal agreement with one of the joint-tenants (who is on the lease) that I would be held accountable to the same leasing agreement that she was held to even though I didn't sign any kind of leasing contract. We both agreed to this. We split the rent up 4 ways so that we each pay $310 because the full rent is $1240, and we split all the utilities and cable 4 ways as well. Our rent is due on the 1st of each month, however our property manager established that our rent isnt late until after the 5th and doesn't charge a late fee until the
6th. Then she charges $25 for the first day that the rent is late and $5 per day thereafter. I understand that this is standard and I have absolutely no problem with this policy. However, one of the joint-tenants (the one that I established my verbal contract with) felt the need to create her own policy concerning the late fees for the rent in order to discourage us paying the rent late. Of course we pay her the rent and she pays the property manager. She is telling me that I have to have the rent to her by the first of the month and that after the 1st she is going to charge me $25 dollars and then $5 everyday thereafter. I have never been late with any of my bills and have in fact been early on most of them since we moved into the apartment last July 17th. In essence she would be making a profit off of me if I turned in my rent on the 2nd of the month. I would have to pay her $25 dollars and she would owe nothing to the rental property. She however can turn in her rent any day up until the 5th with no penalty.
She came to me with this proposal a few weeks after we moved into the apartment and I felt "forced" to agree to it verbally because she had been making statements saying that she could kick me out whenever she wanted to because she was on the lease and I wasn't. I have since done my research and found that legally I have the same rights that she does even though I am not on the leasing contract, however I have found nothing that deals with these late fee charges.
Because I am never late with my bills thus far, I'm not too concerned about paying this fee, nonetheless I would like to know if I am obligated to them if an issue should ever arise in the future. Could you please help me, and if you can't then please direct me to a web site that can.
Thank you for your time.

pluckyflamingo

Well keep paying your bills and you will have no problem, however if her name is on the lease and yours isn't, your need to go by her rules. Also if the 5th is the last day rent is due maybe she wants to get the checks deposited into her account by the 1st so when she writes a check to the property manager that there wont be any incificent funds. If the girl you live with is nice enough you could always ask her what the purpose of her "rule" is

ScottGem

I totally disagree with rishy. The people on the lease are YOUR landlords. Your agreement is with them and whatever terms their landlord gives them are not applicable to you. If she wants to charge you more than 1/4 the rental, if she wants to establish a different late fee schedule, that is her right as the landlord. You can either move or accept her terms.