I’m a new ‘landlord’ and after a few heads to bounce something g off of.
My tenant was paying rent at ‘month end’ for the first couple of months and then asked to change it to the 1st of the month to help with payday overlap. I did this and last month had to pay a small difference for the extra day.
He has now contacted me saying he thinks I should be calculating the rent over the year so he will need to pay more as the offset on future payments because months are different in length or days! Surely the rental amount is a flat amount of £X per month as some months are shorter and some longer so it’s pro rata and all balances out. I hope that makes sense!
If the payment date was ‘month end’, and I was asked if it could be paid on the 1st month, I would not change anything. Its only 1 day. Why complicate matters?
In my view it was a mistake to move the payment date formally. You could have just agreed informally with him that he could pay a few days later each month. Now you have a pay date that is out of sync with the period of the tenancy.
I’m not really sure what your tenant means but you could just reply to them that the rent is calculated over the calendar month so regardless of the number of days per month, the rent is the same each month.
Regarding charging for the extra day, I wouldn’t have bothered but as you have now done that, just say to the tenant that you just need to charge the one day to move the rent date forward a day, then the ‘calendar month’ will start on 1st rather than month end.