“When I moved into my home, my landlord let me pay rent in installments. Then a few months into my lease, all of a sudden the same landlord is demanding full payment on the 1st of each month. What can I do?”

In our last blog post, we discussed that most leases require tenants to pay rent on or around the first of each month. What can a tenant do if a landlord at first allows partial rent payments, then halfway through a lease asks a tenant to pay the full rent on the first of each month?

Tenants should review their lease for rent payment due dates. If the lease allows payment in installments, then tenants can pay accordingly. If a lease requires full payment at the beginning of each month, the tenant risks violating the lease if they don’t pay by the rent deadline in the lease. Even if the landlord’s business practices in the past allowed different payment terms than what is in the lease, the landlord may still have the right to enforce the lease rent due date in court.