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COLLECTING OF LATE
PAYMENTS BY LANDLORDS
If you are a landlord
then you will be accustomed to accepting
late payments. The real fact is you may
have tenants who don’t pay their bills
on time. This happens repeated and is
not a one time issue. You, being a
landlord, should know how to deal such
issues before renting out your property
to people. Don’t be happy that your
tenant is a very nice man as he has paid
you on time till today. You can expect
him to default at any time and therefore
you should be ready to deal with such
situations. The good news is that,
handling late payments is not as
difficult as you think.
You definitely have to
put some effort and time for this, but
in the end you can reach some
resolution. As soon as you are faced
with late payments, you have to start
the resolution process or you may be in
more trouble. Though, you may be very
inconvenienced by this process, if you
don’t start collecting late payments
right away you will loose out on a lot
of money.
Firstly, you should mail
a letter to the tenant reminding him of
his bill. In several cases the tenant
would have actually forgotten his date
of payment. As soon as he receives your
reminder he will pay for his bill and
you will get your money. In such cases
you should end the matter there and move
on with life without harassing your
tenant. However, things don’t work so
smoothly all the time.
If you don’t get a reply
for your mail then you should take
further steps to get your money. You
should call his using a phone and speak
to him. Explain to them that they have
to pay the rent. In most of the cases, a
call will scare them and they will send
you a cheque immediately.
The last step you can
take, after payments start to mount up,
is to ask your tenant to leave. No one
desires to take this step, but it is
unavoidable when your tenant does not
pay. Therefore, you should ask him to
leave or make the payments which are due
immediately.
The bottom line is
collecting of late payments is not very
simple. However, the chances of evicting
your tenant are very minute. But
remember, if you don’t collect the late
payments or take steps to stop it then
you will be loosing a lot of money each
month.
One other way to
encourage your tenant to make the
payments on time is by offering him a
marginal reduction in payment it he
makes it on time. You can offer him a
greater reduction if he agrees to pay 3
months rent in advance.
You can also hire a
collection agent which may be a costly
and unfriendly solution.
You can also apply for a home business
merchant account and accept credit card
payments from your tenants. This is a
good option as you will get your
payments on time. |
