JourneyStead Help

Renting a place

Paying rent

What is due, how to pay, setting up a debit order, and your deposit.

Written for Renter
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Once you have a lease, your Home page shows your rent: what it is, when it is due, and what you owe right now.

What Home shows

  • Rent for the place you live in, such as “R2,500 a month, due on day 1”.
  • Who your landlord is.
  • To pay, or Nothing to pay right now, or an overdue amount.
  • Who pays: if a sponsor covers part of the rent, each share is shown.
  • How you pay.
  • Your invoices.

How you pay

This depends on what your landlord has set up.

  • Online. If your landlord has connected card payments, you can pay an invoice by card. When it goes through you are brought back to JourneyStead with a message that your landlord has the payment, and a receipt is emailed. A payment can take a few minutes to show while your bank confirms it.
  • A debit order. If your landlord has connected debit orders, you can have rent collected from your bank account on the day it is due. Choose Set up a debit order. Your bank asks you to approve it in your banking app, so watch for that. You can stop it from the same place.
  • EFT or cash. If your landlord does not take payments online yet, Home says so. Pay them the way you agreed.

Where the money goes

Rent is paid straight to your landlord’s own account. JourneyStead never holds it. If something about a payment looks wrong, ask your landlord first, and keep your receipt.

If you only pay part of an invoice, Home shows what is still to pay on it.

Invoices and receipts

Each month’s rent is an invoice. Open Your invoices to see what has been paid and what is still due. Invoices and receipts are sent to you by email too.

Your deposit

Home shows the deposit held by your landlord, or says nothing is recorded yet. The rules that protect it are in law, and a landlord is told them:

  • The deposit must be kept in an interest-bearing account, and the interest is yours.
  • It must be paid back 7 days after the lease ends if nothing is owed, 14 days after the place is restored if deductions are made, or 21 days if you did not come to the outgoing inspection.

See Inspections for why the move-out inspection matters.

If you cannot pay on time

Talk to your landlord before the due date, in a message on JourneyStead, so there is a record. A late fee applies only if your lease says so, and never on a lease funded by NSFAS.

People who help pay your rent Add a parent, a guardian, a bursary or an employer, and what each share means.Inspections Move-in, routine and move-out inspections: the report, signing it, and disagreeing.Notifications and emails What you are told about, where, and how to choose what is also emailed.