Late fees

Tenancy Types and Management

i use your agreements and insert a fee of £20.00+Vat for the late payment reminder fee. A tenant started off paying on the due date (a month from the tenancy start date) but then stopped the standing order and is late every month by at least 2 weeks. He has a cavalier attitude to when he will pay and is upfront in saying so and has never givena reason why it was late.

He works as a law lecturer and says he will challenge the late payment fee element if we take the several overdue reminder fees to court. He is using the recent ruling about bank charges as an example.

Do you think £20.00 is too high?. and have you heard of the fees being challenged before?.

Also, on the same tenants house, we needed to carry out porch maintenance so instructed a roofer to attend. He could only go on a Saturday and told us it would be around 8.30.He actually arrived at 8am and started work but the tenant never let him know he was in and the roofer didnt see him whilst he was there. He is know claiming he wants compensation for being woken up early (even though at the time the road was being dug up by the council before our roofer got there at 8am).Please advise.