I charge my tenant $145/month as “oil escrow” so the tenant doesn’t get hit with large bill in the winter for heating oil use. Bills for heating oil can be upwards of $600/month in the winter. I save the $145/month and use it to pay the heating oil bills.
There are a few problems I run into with this situation.
The primary problem is: I cannot add this as an automatic charge to trigger in addition to rent, as a separate line item.
It would be helpful to have a way to charge additional income/payments/escrows to the tenant automatically, similar to how the rent is charged automatically. Other landlords may do similar charges such as: Parking, laundry, water/sewer, etc.