Setting it up
Each tenant opts in individually. There is no way to switch a tenant to Direct Debit without them agreeing to it, which is both the legal position and the only version that works in practice.
Separate from your subscription
Your rent collection and your subscription payment are deliberately kept apart. A problem with one cannot touch the other, and your rent does not sit in an account LetCompliance controls.
The ledger
Rent due dates are tracked, so a missed payment shows up on the day it is missed rather than at the next statement. Paid, part-paid and missed are distinct states: a tenant who pays £600 of £800 is not marked as paid, and the balance still owed is what carries forward. Record the £600 as a part payment on that month’s charge and it goes into Finance as rent received, so your income figures count what actually arrived.
Receipts
Rent receipt PDFs are generated from the ledger, so what the tenant receives and what your accounts say are the same numbers.
While a collection clears
A Direct Debit takes a few working days to confirm. Until Stripe confirms a Direct Debit, the tenant’s row on the Rent page reads Collecting and the amount, and pointing at that line shows the day it is expected to clear, counting bank holidays in England and Wales. If it is still not confirmed four working days after it was submitted, the line says so: Stripe’s dates are estimates, so it can take a few days longer. After seven working days the row reads Collection not confirmed, and pointing at it asks you to check the payment in Stripe. While it clears, the rent is not counted as arrears.
When a Direct Debit does not go through
These apply to a property in your own account, not in an agency workspace.
- Lack of funds. If the tenant’s bank turns a Direct Debit down because there was not enough money in the account, the tenant’s Rent panel offers to try it again. Nothing is tried again by itself: you choose it, the tenant is emailed first, and it can be tried at most twice, within 30 days of the first attempt, the limits Stripe uses for its own Bacs retries
- Any other reason. It is not tried again. The rent is still owed and is collected another way, such as by bank transfer, then recorded on the Rent page with Part payment
- A request not answered. A tenant who has not set up the Direct Debit you asked for is reminded by email on day 5 and day 12. The link stops working 14 days after it was sent; Resend link sends it again, and the 14 days and both reminders start afresh
- The day it leaves their account. While a collection is in progress, the Rent panel shows the day the money is expected to leave the tenant’s account
- Your Stripe account could not take payments. Rent that falls due then is not taken by Direct Debit, and the tenant whose Direct Debit it is is emailed to pay it another way. Once the account can take payments again, the Rent panel lists those months and can have them collected by Direct Debit, with the tenant emailed first
Bank holidays
The dashboard calendar shows the bank holidays in England and Wales, on every plan, in your own account and in an agency workspace. The private calendar feed you can add from Settings in your own account shows them too.
In your own account, rent collected by Direct Debit that is due on a bank holiday, or on a weekend that runs into one, has a note on the calendar and in the calendar feed, up to its due day, saying when Bacs works again and when the money is expected to leave the tenant’s account.
