Tenant late with rent

Angelicdevil

dktreesea wrote: »

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.

Forgive me if I've missed something but the tenants aren't relying on housing benefits?

They are simply being paid late by their employer.

Agree with other posters with regards to keeping a good relationship with what seem to be good tenants.

Keep an eye on the situation and if it becomes a regular occurrence that the rent is delayed by a few days consider changing the due date? If it escalates and the rent becomes unpaid then consider going down the formal route of issuing an S8. But at the moment, I wouldn't be too hasty!

Prothet_of_Doom

This type of thread is why my wife and I do not see eye to eye on my long held (10 years) ambition to become a Landlord, which doesn't sit well with her panic at the first sign of trouble personality.
10 years is along time to procrastinate isn't it, but I've been busy paying my mortgage on time.

jamesd

KME91 wrote: »

Obviously we're not too happy about this late payment, but being realistic they have been great tenants up til now, so I don't want to come down too hard on them. I do want to make it clear to them though that this isn't an ideal situation. 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. I'm also not sure I appreciate being told the rent will be late, rather than asked if that's OK

Chances are that they were planning on the income and didn't find out until it didn't arrive either. Not your fault but things happen.

Of the answers so far, the one that seems best is discussing changing the day the rent is due so that a future late payment of pay won't have a repeat adverse effect on the landlord-tenant relationship.

Ideally they would have sufficient financial reserves to handle this but tenants aren't necessarily the best off people financially and it's not too surprising that they may not have accumulated sufficient reserves to handle this.

Don't serve a section 21 unless you really want them to leave. They may well arrange to leave with no further notice to you required beyond your own S21.

DominicJ_2

I would S.21 them without a second thought.

BUT

I would have made it absolutely clear before taking them on as a tenant that if the first I heard of them not paying rent was when I checked my bank and it wasnt there, S.21 would result.
If they phoned me and explained, I would happily give them a month delay or reach some other agreement.

Did you give any instructions to your tenants?
Beyond "pay up or else"?
There are a long list of bills any sane tenant is going to pay before rent, any sensible LL needs to accept that.

Angelicdevil

DominicJ wrote: »

I would S.21 them without a second thought.

BUT

I would have made it absolutely clear before taking them on as a tenant that if the first I heard of them not paying rent was when I checked my bank and it wasnt there, S.21 would result.
If they phoned me and explained, I would happily give them a month delay or reach some other agreement.

Did you give any instructions to your tenants?
Beyond "pay up or else"?
There are a long list of bills any sane tenant is going to pay before rent, any sensible LL needs to accept that.

It sounds like they did advise the LA that they were going to be a few days late with rent but the OP only found out from the LA *after* the rent due date.

Jimby509

anselld wrote: »

I would agree with the general views to cut some slack, however it is worth remembering that rent is a priority debt and should come before "replacing the car" and most other "unseen expenditure".

I disagree. I am a self employed window cleaner. If my car breaks down and needs replacing I can't get to work to earn my wage.
If my car breaks and needs replacing, but I use my savings on rent instead, I may have paid my rent but I have no means of getting to work to earn money for next months rent or food, elec, etc. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day give him a fishing rod ....yada yada ya

What is a 'priority debt' differs from person to person based on your income and lifestyle

Lord_Baltimore

Bah, was there really the need to weigh in on the OP like that? He asked for advice not a lynch mob.

chuckley

JESUS CHRIST!

OP you are exactly one of the reasons tenants hate some landlords.

Already looking to issue S21 notice because they've pre warned you of a late payment.

Youre clearly in the wrong business if you can't afford to wait a bit for the payment or have a buffer to cover potential legal proceedings after x amount of months.

chuckley

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.

This is the best bit! Well im particularly concerned one late rent payment is enough to send you into such a panic, where you want to add interest, send letters, threaten s21 when they've pre-warned?

do you sit there as the clock strikes 12?

you need to give up the landlord business. its not for you.

i hope you NEVER experience an employer not paying you ontime.

Lord_Baltimore

chuckley wrote: »

JESUS CHRIST!

OP you are exactly one of the reasons tenants hate some landlords.

Already looking to issue S21 notice because they've pre warned you of a late payment.

Youre clearly in the wrong business if you can't afford to wait a bit for the payment or have a buffer to cover potential legal proceedings after x amount of months.

I just don't understand why you're being so uppity. If you re-read the OP, advice is being sought not vilification.

At worst, the kind of response you've made is likely to harden his/her attitude toward tenants and that's not what you want is it?

you need to give up the landlord business. its not for you.

'Business' being the operative word, not 'charity'.