What to do if your tenants don't pay

What do a lot of landlords get wrong when dealing with tenants?

Things can always go wrong throughout a tenancy whether you are managing your property yourself or have an agent managing it.

In this article, we’re going to talk about what happens if a tenant doesn’t pay their rent.

What we have noticed with landlords who manage their property themselves is that they often take payments manually at the start of the month, without having a direct debit set up or a standing order with the tenant. With this arrangement, what happens if a tenant can’t or doesn’t pay on time or at all?

We can’t stress enough the need for having a direct debit set up with your tenant so you are in control and not relying on them to pay you on time by themselves, and you’ll also know fairly quickly of any payments that didn’t go through

If your tenant doesn’t pay their rent on time, here are some steps we recommend you take to ensure you can work through the situation with them:

• Make sure you follow up with them as soon as you notice any missed payments. We recommend doing this by text and email first
• If they don’t respond within 24 hours it’s best to give them a call so you can understand if it was just a case of a late payment or something more serious that could affect them paying in the future
• If a tenant is continually late or misses rent payments, it may be best to copy their guarantor into communications you have with them. If their guarantor knows that they aren’t or can’t pay, then it can help to speed up the process of finding a solution to the problem, especially if the guarantor is close to them such as a family member.

What you can also do when speaking to a tenant with a missed payment, try and take payment then while you are having the conversation rather than later, so they won’t forget or can be held accountable. It may be that they can’t afford to pay the full amount, so take a part of the full amount and set up a plan to pay the rest in installments.

One thing we’ve also noticed that really helps to solve any issues before the tenant has even moved in is to take the first month’s rent upfront.

It may sound simple, but we’ve seen landlords make the mistake of signing the contracts with a tenant and then letting them move in, only to have problems with getting their rent payments on time.

By getting the first month upfront, you’re able to set a clear date for the rent to be paid by the tenant ahead of the upcoming month and ensure you don’t have any issues early on in the tenancy. You also need to register this in a deposit scheme so the money is safe and you also have a record of it.

This, along with a direct debit that the tenant has agreed to, will help you to keep any arrears low or prevent them from happening in the first place.