<\/div><\/p>\n
The Makings of a GREAT Rent Ledger<\/h2>\n
I\u2019ve handled hundreds of eviction trials.\u00a0 I can tell you for sure: the only thing annoys Judges more than a confusing, sloppy payment ledger is no payment ledger at all.\u00a0 Judges have little patience for landlords who have to assemble their case on the fly by referencing multiple bank statements, check copies, photocopies of NSF checks, and lease agreements.\u00a0 Your Judge will not<\/span> patiently wait as you try to recall every transaction that should be on your rent ledger.\u00a0 Your Judge expects<\/em> a rent ledger.\u00a0 More importantly, your Judge wants<\/em> a well-constructed rent ledger.<\/p>\nRent ledgers Judges appreciate include the following characteristics:<\/p>\n
\n- Visual queues.<\/span><\/strong> The information on the ledger is structured in such a way that the information the reader is looking for jumps out at them.<\/li>\n
- One line per transaction.<\/span><\/strong> The rent ledger does not combine transactions.\u00a0 Things like late fees and NSF fees will be assigned their own line item.\u00a0 They are not combined with other transactions, requiring the reader to guess at what actually happened.<\/li>\n
- Credits are easily distinguished from debits.<\/span><\/strong> Using red text for a debit is an OK method of identifying debits.\u00a0 So is enclosing the debit amounts like <$this>.\u00a0 But red text does not jump out on photocopies.\u00a0 And placing debits and credits in the same column or row can make your rent ledger look cluttered.\u00a0 There\u2019s a better way.<\/li>\n
- Transactions are grouped by month.<\/span><\/strong> Your rent ledger should, of course, present data in chronological order.\u00a0 But the data should also help the reader easily identify which transactions go with which months.<\/li>\n
- The balances are accurate.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Always use a spreadsheet to create your rent ledger.\u00a0 Never use tables from word processing applications.\u00a0 They rarely permit formulas.\u00a0 Never manually calculate your balance and enter them in manually.\u00a0 Your computer is much better at math!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Select the Blue Button Below<\/strong><\/p>\nFree Texas Rent Ledger<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1079,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlinglaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlinglaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlinglaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlinglaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlinglaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/girlinglaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlinglaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlinglaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}