Late fees (auto-posting after grace period)

If you set a late fee on a lease, Habitia posts it for you. You don’t have to remember, log in on the right day, or chase the tenant. A background job runs once a day, finds any active lease with an overdue rent charge past its grace period, and posts one late fee.

How it works

Three lease fields control late fees. You set them when you create the lease (or edit it later):

Rent due day — day of the month rent is owed (1–31).
Grace period (days) — how long after the due day before a fee is allowed.
Late fee ($) — the dollar amount of the fee. Leave blank or 0 to turn late fees off entirely.

Example: due day 1, grace period 5, late fee $50.

Rent for November is due Nov 1.
The grace window ends end of day Nov 6.
If the rent for November still isn’t fully paid on Nov 7, Habitia posts a $50 late fee dated Nov 7, with the description “Late fee — November 2026”.

The fee appears in the ledger like any other charge, and the tenant sees it in their portal.

When Habitia skips the fee

The job is conservative — it won’t post a late fee if any of these are true:

The lease’s late-fee amount is 0 or blank. You haven’t opted in for this lease.
The rent for that month is fully paid. Cash, online, partial — whatever brings the running total up to the charge counts.
A late fee for that period was already posted. Re-running the job doesn’t double-post.
A payment is in flight. The tenant kicked off a card or ACH payment that’s still settling — Habitia waits for it to resolve rather than fee twice.

Note: One late fee per period. If a tenant is still unpaid the next month, the new month’s charge gets its own late fee — but Habitia never stacks multiple late fees on the same month.

When it runs

The late-fee job runs once a day in the early morning. There’s nothing for you to schedule. If you change the Late fee amount or Grace period on a lease mid-month, the new values take effect for the next period and onward — past periods aren’t retroactively re-evaluated.

Removing a late fee that shouldn’t have posted

Open the lease, scroll to the ledger, find the late-fee row, hover, and click the reverse icon. The fee gets reversed (the audit trail keeps both rows). The tenant’s balance drops by the fee amount.

If you reverse a fee but the conditions that caused it still apply (rent still unpaid past grace), Habitia will not re-post the same fee — the existing reversal is treated as “already posted for this period.” This protects you from a reversal loop.

Tip: If you’re going to waive a late fee, do it the same day. The tenant sees the running balance in their portal — getting a fee, then having it removed an hour later, is less confusing than seeing it sit there for a week.

Disabling late fees on a lease

Open the lease, click edit, and set Late fee ($) to blank (or 0). Save. Future overdue periods on this lease will no longer trigger a fee. Already-posted fees stay where they are unless you reverse them individually.

What’s next

Setting your fee policy — who pays the Stripe processing fee (a different fee — not the late fee).
Reviewing payment receipts — what tenants see for their payments and any fees.