When you say “let the landlord know that they will pay in full on the 19th”, what you really mean is that the tenant is announcing that they won’t pay rent on time – and I’m sure you know that this is grounds for eviction.
Rent is generally due on the first of each month, and I think it’s reasonable to assume that you would have mentioned if the 19th was when the rent was due. Unless your lease allows for a grace period, the due date is a firm deadline. It’s not a suggestion, and you can receive a notice to vacate as soon as the date has passed. If a landlord chooses to allow late payments in exchange for fees, you will still have a limit – rarely more than a week.
Your rent is always due in full, including any late fees, so announcing that you’ll eventually pay what you owe is fairly meaningless. You’ll end up paying whether you want to or not, either voluntarily or through wage garnishment.
Landlords have expenses too, and going nearly three extra weeks without income could easily create problems for them. We all have to pay taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs, and many have mortgages that need to be covered by the rents. This is why the law allows us to begin the process to evict immediately, and why a smart landlord will always do so. In most states you can receive an order telling you to pay or vacate within three days, at which point the landlord will file an eviction suit. When that happens you will have damaged your record, making it all but impossible to rent again. You will have until the hearing, or as little as a week or two, before you are physically removed.
If your landlord simply took you at your word and hoped for you to pay in three weeks, you would be able to steal three weeks of free housing from them, as the eviction process takes just as long even if the landlord waits to file. It would be super nice if tenants who cannot pay rent simply admitted this and moved out, but nearly everyone who finds themselves in this position try to bargain for more time. Landlords would go bankrupt if they allowed tenants to decide when they’d pay.
There are some landlords who are too kind for the business they’re in, and had you asked them politely if they’d accept payment in full plus whatever late fees they’d deem reasonable, they might have agreed. I cannot imagine anyone taking kindly to being told by their tenants that they’d pay late, so if this is something you have tried, you should begin to pack.
