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Often a landlord and a tenant will enter into a course of conduct which is contrary to the terms of the written lease agreement. For instance, the written lease agreement may require that the tenant pay rent by the first of each month. But if, over several months, the tenant pays a few days late, a week or two late, a few days late again, this sets up a course of conduct at odds with the written terms of the lease.
After a few months of the landlord accepting rent late without protest, the landlord may get tired of it all and, the next time the rent is paid on the fifth of the month rather than the first, the landlord may refuse to accept it and file an eviction action against the landlord.
The trouble for the landlord is that if the tenant can show that a course of conduct has arisen which is prior to the prompt payment terms of the lease agreement, then the court will likely find that the landlord has waived strict compliance with the prompt payment terms of the lease agreement and may dismiss the eviction action.
In order to make sure that this does not happen to you, if you have have engaged in such a course of conduct with your tenant, you should send the tenant a letter (keeping a photocopy for your records) in which you tell the tenant something along the lines of "I know that I have been accepting rent late in the past, and that's all fine and good, but from now on, I want to put you on notice that I will not accept late payments in the future, and will insist upon strict compliance with the prompt payment terms of the lease agreement."
This is known as a letter of strict compliance, and after the tenant receives it, he or she will not be able to argue at an eviction hearing after the next late payment that the two of you had engaged in a course of conduct barring the eviction action.
The case law on this is Crossroads Somerset Ltd. v. Newland (1987), 40 Ohio App.3d 20
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