Tenant late with rent

[Deleted User]

benjus wrote: »

Just to be pedantic - you can issue a Section 8 notice as soon as there are any arrears or a history of late payments. However, such a notice would be on discretionary grounds and therefore far from guaranteed that the judge would grant possession to the landlord. Waiting for sufficient rent arrears (2 months if rent is due monthly) for non-discretionary grounds gives the landlord a much stronger position in court.

oh, interesting, do you have any extra information on this? I've been reading about Section 8 for rent arrears, specifically this article and it says:

Problems with Section 8
Unlike the s21 route, if successful s8 can give you both a possession order and a money order for arrears of rent without separate hearings, but if possession is your priority you may not achieve this.

In the case of rent arrears (Ground 8) tenants can undermine your claim by paying off some of the arrears (arrears must be 8 weeks at the time of the notice and at the hearing). The tenant/s may claim that repairs have been requested and not carried out or that you have been harassing them.

I guess they're skipping some uncommon scenarios just to keep the article fairly straight forward? I do recall seeing a mention of 2 weeks rent arrears somewhere on the shelter website a few days ago, but I can't remember where...

(Thanks by the way :-))

ging84

KME91 wrote: »

Part of me is inclined to just delete the posts I've made here, I thought this was a pretty reasonable question, and I thought I made my overall opinion of our tenants clear. I don't think it's unreasonable to be asking, should we write or wait? Frankly I'm not sure why I bothered posting in the first place, I should have known what would happen, same as always on here it seems.

Asking about how to handle rent arears is perfectly reasonable

but you have not simply asked that you have made a few statements such as

KME91 wrote: »

I'm particularly concerned that one late wage is enough to have such an immediate impact on their ability to past the rent on time.

KME91 wrote: »

I'm also not sure I appreciate being told the rent will be late, rather than asked if that's OK, and indeed, being told after the rent due date has passed.

KME91 wrote: »

I know these things happen, although I happen to believe that rent, along with council tax should be priority bills.

These statements about how you feel and what you believe are what opens the door to most of the negative reactions you have got. Because many of the 'tenant brigade' will read this and have plenty of empathy for the tenant because they've been there, or they know how easily they could end up there

Do what ever you can to protect your investment, it is very important you do that, getting it even slightly wrong could cost you thousands, but do not get emotionally involved by trying to dictate how people should deal with their finical troubles. From your comments it seems likely you've not often had to face the kind of situation where you have to make decisions on what bills to pay and what not to pay, or you would know what the real priorities are.

jamie11

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

Perhaps fire a shot across their bow with a precautionary S.21. Use it as a statement that missing a rental payment is unacceptable and a repeat offence may result in eviction proceedings.

'Precautionary S21?' There ain't no such animal. It's either a S21 or it's not, and it's a great way to make your tenants feel secure. (Not).

KME91 wrote: »

I never said I was going to ask the agent to impose charges, just that that's what the tenancy agreement says about late rent. People always ask what the tenancy agreement says so I included it. I also said, if you read my post, that they are generally great tenants, and I don't want to come down too hard on them.

I know these things happen, although I happen to believe that rent, along with council tax should be priority bills. My point was, is there anything I need to do to protect us, incase this situation does escalate? If we have to go to court in the future, will a judge look at whether or not we chased this rent and would that reflect on any case we might have?

Part of me is inclined to just delete the posts I've made here, I thought this was a pretty reasonable question, and I thought I made my overall opinion of our tenants clear. I don't think it's unreasonable to be asking, should we write or wait? Frankly I'm not sure why I bothered posting in the first place, I should have known what would happen, same as always on here it seems.

It is a reasonable question, so don't delete.

Your tenant seems to understand the priority of the rent payment which is why he informed you he would be late, that's praiseworthy.

The interest provisions in your agreement will never make up for missing rent but they do encourage on-time payments, trying to enforce them for what amounts to pennies is pointless though.

benjus

citricsquid wrote: »

oh, interesting, do you have any extra information on this?

This is a pretty good summary of all the Grounds you can cite when serving a Section 8 notice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_Notice (see especially grounds 10 and 11)

If you can use grounds 1-8 then (as long as you can demonstrate to the court that the grounds legitimately apply) the judge must grant you the possession order - that's why most landlords wait until ground 8 applies.

However, there's nothing stopping you serving a Section 8 notice on grounds 10 - 17; but you'll have to persuade the judge that a possession order is justified. Also, even if you can cite ground 8, also citing discretionary grounds (e.g. 10 and 11) means that even if the tenant gets the arrears under the threshold for ground 8 before hearing, you could still have a chance of getting the possession order.

I_have_spoken

Best pop around to perform an inspection, tenants may have sold wiring, radiator and boiler to a scrap merchant or be sub-letting to itinerants.

Mulder00

I would just let it be and wait for the rent, everything else you mention is a bit harsh.

That said, when I was a landlord, our problems with the last tenants started exactly like that. First it was late payment because one of them were paid late, next month they had car trouble, next month the husband was critical in hospital and wasn't earning any money, then they were waiting for some investments to pay out. This went on for about 9 months and in hindsight, I don't know why we let it drag out because it was stressful having to chase for the money all the time. In the end, the tenant at least left the place clean and in a decent state. That experience contributed to me never wanting to be a landlord ever again.

rpc

KME91 wrote: »

I'm particularly concerned that one late wage is enough to have such an immediate impact on their ability to past the rent on time.

While paying rent on time is the way it should be, what money do you expect them to use if they don't get paid themselves? If I didn't get paid one month, we'd be digging in to savings to pay the mortgage and bills. Not everybody has savings!

If they genuinely don't have the money, they don't have the money.

It isn't ideal for either LL or T, but you can be a tw*t about it or you can accept that nobody is perfect. As long as this is a one-off then you can view tolerance as being part of a good long-term LL/T relationship.

If it never gets paid or it happens month after month after month then that's something else, but all you have here is one instance of someone getting mucked about by their employer and you are part of the fallout.

rpc

ging84 wrote: »

Do what ever you can to protect your investment, it is very important you do that

And trashing what seems to be an otherwise good relationship over a one-off problem can bring you a nice rent-free void between tenants and the LA will, of course, want a nice big chunk of fees for their tenant-find for the new set.

CWSmith

My last tenants paid the rent on time (or more or less) for 2 years. Then, very gradually, they started paying late, then missing payments. I was very, very accommodating - far more accommodating than my letting agent who was ripping her hair out with frustration! But she is a nice person too, so we thought we'd "wait and see" how the situation panned out.

Eventually, the letting agent took the tenants down to the council to sort out housing benefit. (Yes, she literally put them in her car and took them!) All for fine for a while, the entire rent was paid, including the arrears. But earlier this year when the benefit situation changed and the tenants simply decided they weren't going to pay the excess (about half the rent).

They were evicted. On balance, I wish I hadn't been so generous in the first place. I think that by letting the tenants think it was ok not to pay the rent on time that I wasn't doing them any favours in the long run.

dktreesea

amiehall wrote: »

But say I used my emergency savings on car repairs or whatever, then immediately after my employer made a mistake and my wages were delayed, I might be late paying. I don't think it would be a fair reflection of my financial situation and wouldn't mean that I don't prioritise my rent. There are a lot of things that could have happened outside of someones control...

That's true, but a landlord isn't a tenat's personal banker. Just like it's disrespectful if a landlord doesn't repair and maintain the home properly, it's just as disrespectful, imho, to not pay the rent on time. What's wrong with friends/family/the overdraft if one is short for this month's rent? If that happened to me, once the lease was up I wouldn't renew it.

Rent isn't money down the drain - it's the cost of shelter, just like mortgage interest. I've lived in enough poor quality properties over the years, albeit in third world countries, to think that having a nice place to live, especially one where you don't have to invest any capital, is quite a worthwhile investment. I would have thought, if the tenants have a nice place and a decent landlord, the least they can do is pay the rent on time.

OP, I would think twice about renewing the lease if the tenants are now relying on housing benefit to pay you. The thing is with housing benefit, it's completely unreliable. It can be stopped quite suddenly, for not very supportable reasons, given the rate at which appeals to restart it succeed. Sure, once the tenants are in two months arrears, you can take steps to evict them, but that's quite a bit of rent to risk losing out on.