Some landlords believe enforcing strict late fees is the best way to handle rent payments.

But what would you do if your payment bounced due to an error, and your landlord insisted on charging you a late fee, even though you offered to pay immediately?

Would you just pay it to avoid further conflict?

Or would you push back and make them wait longer?

In the following story, one tenant finds themselves in this exact predicament and decides to make the most of it.

Here’s how it played out.

Landlord insists on charging me a $100 late fee? Okay, I’ll hold my rent payment as long as possible then.

It looks like my bank returned the rent payment to me that I submitted to my landlord last Friday.

I called the leasing office about this, and it turns out this hasn’t appeared in their system yet; it shows I have a zero balance.

So, I offered to bring in a money order immediately after our call so they could still receive their payment in anticipation of the ACH Return.

Therefore, they still receive the funds today in either case.

Frustrated with their response, he decided to hold their payment.

However, they told me to include an extra $100 since the system will classify the payment as late.

Nope. Nevermind.

If you decide to charge me a $100 late fee, I’m taking full advantage of it being “late” and will no longer be coming in to pay today. I told them that.

They can expect their payment on the “pay by” date of the eviction notice they file this month.

Wow! Their response was a bit unreasonable.

Let’s see what Reddit readers have to say about this.

Not every country is like this.

As this person points out, the leasing office will be charged a returned check fee.

Sad but true.

Exactly! They would probably rather you pay the late fee.

That’s one way to show them! It’s crazy that they weren’t willing to work with him, even after he was the one who called about it.

Most people would’ve waited until the leasing office called them to check on the payment status.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.