Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT
Yes, it is safe, we have been doing it for years. We prefer our tenants to make their rent payments in this manner. In fact, we prefer that they set up an automatic payment for the rent, either through their online banking or through their bank directly. Apart from getting your rent on time, this method also has the added benefit of both parties having their own records of rent payments through their bank statements, in case there is a dispute about the rent sometime down the track. Having a separate bank account just for the rent does make sense as well, it makes it easier for you to check if rent has come in, it makes it easier if you need to compare your statement without having to highlight all the rent payments amongst all other payments (you might not want to show your other incomes and spending habits to others), and you can withdraw the rents to your other account (which might offer higher interest) after it has come in, leaving a small balance most of the time in your rent account. I'd consider this offer. Keep in mind, any time you write a check, there's the information he's asking for.  If it makes you feel comfortable, use the small balance account, or set up a 4th one you'll use for these incoming deposits only. It's safe. You give people those numbers every time you write a check.  If a check is forged, and doesn't have your signature on it, the bank has to return the money to you; they get it back from the other bank, who takes whatever action it deems necessary against the forger. They've been doing this for a few hundred years, remember. What you've described is the norm in Australia, where it's rare for anyone under sixty to use cheques. Assuming they're transferring the funds using internet banking, I would have the following suggestions: You make it clear that the the funds must reach your account by the due date for rent. It is their (the tenant's) responsibility to allow for the normal transfer delay from their account to yours. This will save unpleasant arguments later if the rent is late. If you're not comfortable with your tenant knowing your banking details, set up another account specifically for receiving rental income payments and paying your costs associated with the property. This may have the added benefit of simplifying things at tax time. Another alternative, which I think others have mentioned, is to use an escrow service like PayPal, but be aware that these kinds of services will usually charge a small percentage when you withdraw your funds. "How can someone use the account number to withdraw money without my   consent? They can use your account number to game your banks phone support and try to phish their way into your account. Banks have gotten very good at combating this, but theoretically with just the address he lives in, your name, and a bad bank phone rep, he could get into your business. The account number would just be one more piece of information to lead with. I have 1 savings and 3 checking accounts with the same bank. Would they be able to gain access to the other accounts? Dependent on how incompetent the bad bank rep I referenced above is, sure. But the odds are incredibly low, and if anything were to happen, the bank would be falling over itself to fix it and make reparations so that you don't sue for a whole crap ton more. Is there a more secure and still free option that I have overlooked? Opening up yet another checking account solely for accounts receivable and transfer to accounts payable would keep your financial records more transparent. Also, banks are doing ""money transfer by email"" now, so I don't know how great that is for business transactions, but in that instance you're just giving out an email linked to a money receiving account instead of an actual account number. Paypal is also a pretty good EFT middleman, but their business practices have become shady in the past 5 years." It isn't EFT, but you might mention to your tenant, that many banks offer a Bill Pay service (example) where the bank will automatically mail a check to the right person for you. I have my rent setup this way.  My bank will send a rent check directly to my landlord 5 days before it is due. I am able to set this up for my tenants by providing them with a form to fill out so that they provide their name and bank account information, and then I gave that to my bank and they establish a recurring ACH transfer.  This way the tenant never gets my bank information. One note about this, I had a tenant break her lease and move out.  She notified me a couple of days before the first of the month, and by the time she had moved a few days later the rent had been automatically paid.  She called her bank and asked them to reverse the most recent transaction so she could have that month's rent refunded, and much to my surprise, they did.  So the financial transfer is not necessarily one-way. This is in the US. "The biggest disadvantage to you is that your tenant now knows your bank information, which means he can easily identify your source of money in the event he wins a lawsuit and wins a judgement.  He will be able to have a court marshall freeze your account. However, if you deposit your tenant's check into your account as opposed to an EFT, then your tenant can basically still obtain your bank account information and freeze your account, it would just take him a bit longer to get that information. I am definitely anti-landlord in these situations because I've had to deal with so many bad ones here in NYC, but as a landlord, the best thing you can do is to create a ""buffer"" account for you to deposit tenant rent money into, then transfer the money from the buffer account to your regular account.  This would prevent the tenant from knowing your personal bank information and greatly delay the tenant receiving his judgement from an assumed court win against you. My source:  I had to take my landlord to court, and after obtaining a judgement, I got a court marshall to begin the process of closing access to her account (she couldn't access the money in that account).  The process resulted in her sending me a check (assuming from her other account) for the judgement since her account was frozen and she couldn't access any of her money." Other options would be to use paypal, your tenant would only need your e-mail address. Most banks have a similar system to do a person-to-person transfers. My bank uses an e-mail address and only the last 4 digits of the account number. Similar to @SoulsOpenSource's answer, I would suggest Venmo, which works like PayPal but is free for debit-card-to-debit-card transactions. More information here. The mode of payment mentioned by your bank is called the ACH(Automatic Clearing House) which means that anyone(Trusted payment gateway owners like banks themselves) can process payments. There can be a fraud declared against any payment that you have made and you can get every single penny back. This amount can not be withdrawn in cash at all. However for your situation I would suggest that you ask your bank to block any transactions above the amount of a specific sum, this way they will require your authorization to finalize the payment. You should feel safe after this. Also no one can access any other account apart from the one whose details you are giving out so do not worry about this guy(or anyone else for that matter) to be able to access your other accounts.  Hope this helps. (I have experience in payment gateways so I do understand these procedures.) Cheers!! You can consider opening accounts either in Paypal or Google Wallet. In this way, you link your bank information to these accounts and the only information you need to provide your tenant is your e-mail id. Its safe and in this scenario -- just money transfer through bank account, there is no fee either for the sender (your tenant) or the receiver (you). "I live in Kenya, and also here we have corruption. However, we use EFT, RTGS, Mobile Money and its more safe than cheques. Beware, that paper based payments cost you way more than anything electronic. Often the bank charge you for the cheque book, they charge for receiving paper based payment instruments, and settlement is often a day or two, while mobile/electronic settlement is instant. Seen from a tenants perspective, its also easier. Imagine too, the small likelihood that you loose the cheques from your tenants?  Your fear for your account is understandable, but you may need to learn a little now, about how accounts are handled. In an online community only the persons with the necessary electronic credentials can withdraw from your account, being it online via your screen, or at the cashier, or by other means.  Therefore, your money are safer via the electronic means. The cause of your concern / unease can be that you are relinquishing your control from a paper-based, visible system, into a system which you may not know so much about, maybe because of that you have not done so much on computers, yet.  As a most recent caveat, though, don't get into the so called bitcoin technology, it is not safe, and as you saw, most recently, the very owner himself became the perpetrator breaking his very own bank by artificially inflating amounts on his own account, according to Japanese authorities. Now, electronic banking has been in existence since soon 40 years. Its based on cash, so behind the scenes, between the banks, huge deposits of cash are being moved physically, around from vault to vault, in the bank's money exchange / transaction settlement system. Thereby, a bank does not need to physically transfer money from one physical bank building to another - as they have huge loads of cash stashed in central depositories, between which they can now exchange money as compensation for cheques and electronic transfers. So, behind the scene of the electronic world, there are still physical cash being moved around, deep under the ground, in such vaults. I hope this has given you a little bit of confidence in the ""modern times"". If you have further questions, you are welcome.  These were my 50 cents :-). My background is in software development, where I have worked on banking systems for more than 10 years, making banking systems, as part of huge teams, working for the largest banks in the world." "In Britain it's standard practice to use an electronic bank transfer, otherwise known as a ""standing order"" for the monthly rent payment. Many letting agents insist on it here in Britain. It's rare to hear of fraud. It is possible to setup a Direct Debit with the account numbers, as happened in a famous case where Jeremy Clarkson claimed losing account numbers wasn't a problem. If a direct debit is taken from your account, then you are protected by the the Direct Debit guarantee which means that you get a full and immediate refund if there is any fraud or unexpected payments spotted. Some landlords, particularly of bedsits accept plain old cash, however that's not recommended as there is no trace of it being paid, which could lead to legal disputes." You could setup a Ally account to use solely for this. There is no minimum, no opening balance requirement, and you can do up to 6 transfers a month for free.  This would partition your money from other accounts, while giving you the flexibility to move it to other accounts with ease. Given a routing number / account number, it's easy to print a check with those details.  All you need is a MICR font.  No EFT needed. I would recommend that instead, you get his account information, and set up a direct withdrawal.  Of course, then you could potentially use HIS account fraudulently, but that would be true even if he just wrote you a check. Alternative solution with possibly better results: Use a 3rd party to transfer money between both of you. 2 Services you may want to look at: Rent share might be the best option. We are using it to split payment between 3 people in our unit. The owner is getting a single check that appears to be coming from all of us. The payment is automatic and goes through every month. I'm not sure if you as the owner could collect money electronically as opposed to receiving a check. It sounded like you didn't necessarily care about that though.
"Expenses: IMO, The best way to deal with this situation is by treating you staying at her house as flatting/renting a room as @Pseudonym stated he does with his partner in the comments of another answer.  This means you pay X amount of dollars a week to her as rent which she can most likely choose to put it towards house insurance, interest, repayments, repairs and improvements etc etc. From there you split your ""living"" expenses 50/50. Living expenses include stuff like telephone, internet, utility bills, food, contents insurance etc. Renting Income: Then the earnings/losses you make from renting your apartment out are yours alone. After all if your place gets trashed by a tenant with a meth lab, she won't and shouldn't have to pay the ridiculous amounts of money required to get it fixed up.  Determining the rent to pay: Not Ideal, but an easy method: Use your place's renting value as a indicator/market research example to determine how much rent you would pay to her (however since you are only a half resident at her place you would only pay half).  Ideal: Your place would have a different renting value to hers, so do some research together and find a median renting value of her house based on similar houses or ask her how much she wants you to pay in rent since after all the owner of the house has final say on the renting value. You ""might"" want to consider that you staying with her is a more secure tenancy as she knows you won't wreak her place, but the same cannot be said for the tenant you have in your place. (Post in the comments if you think this last sentence should be removed, I'm on the fence about it but it seems relevant.) Disclaimer: Remember you are considering a long-term relationship with her don't get too picky and don't let it get personal/emotional when deciding the renting amounts." "There's many concrete answers, but there's something circular about your question. The only thing I can think of is that phone service providers ask for credit report when you want to start a new account but I am sure that could be worked around if you just put down a cash deposit in some cases. So now the situation is flipped - you are relying on your phone company's credit!  Who is to say they don't just walk away from their end of the deal now that you have paid in full?   The amount of credit in this situation is conserved. You just have to eat the risk and rely on their credit, because you have no credit. It doesn't matter how much money you have - $10 or $10000 can be extorted out of you equally well if you must always pay for future goods up front. You also can't use that money month-by-month now, even in low-risk investments. Although, they will do exactly that and keep the interest. And I challenge your assumption that you will never default. You are not a seraphic being. You live on planet earth. Ever had to pay $125,000 for a chemo treatment because you got a rare form of cancer? Well, you won't be able to default on your phone plan and pay for your drug (or food, if you bankrupt yourself on the drug) because your money is already gone. I know you asked a simpler question but I can't write a good answer without pointing out that ""no default"" is a bad model, it's like doing math without a zero element. By the way, this is realistic. It applies to renting in, say, New York City. It's better to be a tenant with credit who can withhold rent in issue of neglected maintenance or gross unfair treatment, than a tenant who has already paid full rent and has left the landlord with little market incentive to do their part." "I don't have a crystal ball but chances are your tenant is definitely lying. Rent was late and now the money intended to cover the rent; miraculously is lost in the mailbox. Anyhow, you were already nice to tolerate the late ""payment"". Keshlam's option 1.5 in the comments above is the ideal way to settle in which both parties have learned a lesson and are at a loss. Demand the rent payment but settle for half as a one time courtesy. If this continues or this tenant has shown shady predicaments such as this, you should look for legal means to evict this tenant.  College students are very creative and who's to say this won't happen again? ""The neighbors dog took my wallet.""" You're worried about your tenant. That just means you're a nice guy, and it's ok to be nice. At the same time, you can't be expected to lose money on the property or charge well below market on the rent. My suggestions: You know what? She'll totally understand. You've been super nice in keeping the rent low for so many years, and she's been a great tenant, too. At a certain point, inflation kicks in and you have to raise the rent. She'll get that. If she can find a cheaper place, that's a win for both of you. Help her move if you want to be extra nice. Then decide if you want to sell the place or raise the rent. Either option is fine. Listen to your wife. That's just general advice. Question: I live in half of a duplex together with other college students. I put my rent (roughly $750 in cash) in the landlord's mailbox while he was out of town for three weeks. I told him ahead that I would do this, but he claims I never did, and he would have asked me not to. Anyway, now he claims the money was not there when he returned and I still owe $750.  Answer: Well, that's tough. It could be that the money was stolen from the mailbox. It could be that the landlord pocketed the money and is trying to scam you. Your problem is that you have no receipt, and no evidence at all that you paid the money. There's little you can do other than paying up (again) and learning from this expensive lesson. "This is fairly simple, actually.  You should insist on payment for the rent payment you never received and stop accepting cash payments. If you want to be nice, and believe the story, allow the tenant additional time or payment in installments for the missing $750, but this is a textbook example of why it's a bad idea to transact with cash.  Insist on cash equivalents that are traceable and verifiable - check, money order or cashier's check, made out to you or your company name. Also, for what it's worth, you are not out $750, unless you choose to be.  Your tenant is.  ""I put cash in your mailbox"" is not proof of payment, and doesn't fly as payment anywhere.  If it did, I'd never pay any of my bills." The simplest way to handle this is for you to rent the apartment and sublet to the girlfriend and friend.  I'd split the utilities evenly, one-third from each.  The reason for this is that each of you contribute evenly to generating the utility bills.  It's not like your income makes the water cost more for you.   Utilities are driven by usage.  Dividing them other than equally is likely to lead to more problems than it solves.  Also, it seems unlikely that a different apartment would use significantly different water, electricity, or internet.  Those are driven by the appliances rather than the size or location of the apartment.  Only pay more for the utilities if you want something that they don't.  For example, maybe you want HBO, etc.  It would be reasonable for you to pay the entire premium if that's a luxury that they simply wouldn't buy.   I'd also divide the groceries evenly if you share and share alike.  If you eat separate meals, you can buy separate groceries.   If the rent can't be split evenly but you could afford it alone, then you can just sign up for it.  If you break up with the girlfriend and/or the friend moves out, you're still fine.  You have your fancy apartment and can afford it.   The bigger problem comes if you can't afford the apartment without both the girlfriend and friend contributing.  If so, you should probably avoid this situation.  It's fragile.  Any person leaving would put you in a financially untenable position.  You can look for a new tenant to replace your friend, but you can't exactly rely on getting a new move-in girlfriend on demand.   Neither the girlfriend nor the friend can afford to be on the main lease.  In case of emergency or tragedy, they couldn't replace you as a tenant.  That's why they should sublet.  Then their obligation is to you, not to the landlord.   How much apartment would the girlfriend and friend get if you weren't involved?  What rents would they pay?  That's probably how much rent they should pay for this apartment.  You want a better apartment (or a better location)?  That's on you.   You should only do this if you want to do it.  If you want to share apartments with the girlfriend and friend, then do so.  Work out something equitable.  If you plan on moving in together to reduce your costs, then you don't sound like you are compatible.  Obviously there are reasons to move in with the girlfriend aside from costs.  Why can't the friend get his or her own place?  The added rent probably won't do more than pay for the added room (you could get a one bedroom without the friend).   That points to an alternative way of calculating the friend's contribution:  the difference between a two bedroom and a one bedroom apartment.  That's the additional cost of the bigger apartment.  If the friend can't afford that, then this might not be a good idea.   Make sure that you can afford the apartment if one or both of the friend and girlfriend move out.  You can eventually replace the friend as the tenant but don't rely on doing the same with the girlfriend.  Share utilities evenly.  Possibly groceries too.  The friend should pay at least the added cost of the additional bedroom.  Don't expect either to pay more in the new apartment than they would pay without you.  You should be the only one on the main lease; sublet to them. I am in Australia, but I think the banks in the UK would use similar wrkings. Your options 1 and 2 are basically no. Why would the bank consider your wife to be paying you rent when you live together. These are the type of practices that led to the GFC, and since then practices have been tightened. Regarding option 3, yes banks do take into consideration rent in their analysis of your loan. However, they would not include the full rent in their calculations, but about 70% to 75% of the full rent. This allows for loss of rent during vacant periods and adds a safety factor in their caluclations. But they will not include the rent itself, you would have to have other income as well to support your loan. Saying that, we do have Low Doc Loans in Australia (loans with little documentation required to get a loan). With these loans you basically have to make a declaration that you are telling the truth regarding your income sources and you can only usually borrow a lower LVR as these loans are seen as a bigger risk. These type of loans have also been tightened up since the GFC.