Pre-Authorized Debit
Pre-Authorized Debit (PAD) is a convenient way to pay your monthly rent. The only thing you need to do is ensure that you maintain an account balance high enough to pay your rent each month, and the rest happens automatically.
Using Pre-Authorized Debit simplifies the rent payment process, because all you need do is enter your banking information and give permission to your landlord. Your rent is now automatically paid each month. You don’t have to fill out pre-authorized cheques each year, and you don’t have to remember to send your landlord an e-transfer each month.
Setting Up Pre-Authorized Debit
To begin, your landlord will go through an application process, so we know who they are and do a quick background check on them. This is to ensure that only people who should be withdrawing funds from your account are allowed to.
Once that is finished, your landlord will send you an email with a link to a form. This is the step where you give your permission to withdraw the funds and add your banking information.
The email will look like this:
And then the form looks like this:
Simply fill in your banking information, then click the “Give Permission” button at the bottom, and you’re all set! That’s everything that’s needed from you.
Just a Note
You may have noticed that there is a message at the bottom of the screen that says “Powered by Rotessa”. Rotessa is our partner who is responsible for scheduling the transactions with the bank. This is how money is moved from your account to your landlord’s. We need to share a small amount of information with them, to make this all work. You can read more about our Privacy Policy and Rotessa’s Terms and Conditions for Canada.
The Tenant Portal
As a tenant, you’re under no obligation to use our services, even if your landlord has signed up and is collecting rent through our Pre-Authorized Debit feature. There is a section of the site which gives you information for Pre-Authorized Debit. To get there, simply log into the site, then choose “Pre-Authorized Debit” from the left navigation menu. You’ll see a page that looks like this:
The dropdown menu below “Select Rental Agreement” allows you to choose which lease you would like to view the Pre-Authorized Debit information for. The only time you’d have more than one lease is if you had an overlapping month when moving from one rental to another, or if you were renting two places at the same time for some reason. Otherwise, this will just have your current address displayed.
On the left of the page is some basic information about your lease. Details such as the address, your landlord’s name, the tenants on the lease, and the start and end dates.
In the section on the right, you can see upcoming transactions, past transactions, and your current information.
Updating Banking Information
To update your banking information, log on to the platform, choose Pre-Authorized Debit on the left navigation menu. Then choose the rental agreement from the dropdown menu. Expand the My Information section and click the Update button. This will allow you to update your bank information.
Once the dialog is opened, you can set the new banking information and click Save.
Deactivating Pre-Authorized Debit
In the future, if you ever decide that you want to deactivate Pre-Authorized Debit, let your landlord know, and they will deactivate Pre-Authorized Debit on their end.
If you have any questions, please let us know and we’ll add a Frequently Asked Questions section to this document.
Thank you for your interest in this feature.