Landlords, today I would like to talk to you about rental payments with your tenants.

With regards to the rental payments, do you have a rental account statement for each tenancy?
If not why not?
On this rental account statement what you need to have is;
A date that the rent is due,
The amount that is due,
The date that the tenant paid and,
The amount paid.

Reason being you want to keep a log of this and then that will prove the dates that the tenants have always paid and should anything happen you have got a documentation that will prove the tenants have always been late paying or they’ve always paid on time should you need to make any claims towards the tenant’s deposit, you have a documentation there.

With regards to the detail, I’ve just touched up on that, you want as much detail as possible;
The date that it is due,
The amount due,
The date that the tenant paid and,
The amount that the tenant has paid.

If the tenant contacts you to try and set up a payment plan, especially in the uncertain times that we are facing, you want to approach this and you want to work with your tenants.
This will go in your favour later down the line should anything further develop with regards to the tenant and you having to serve notice to evict them. Because if you haven’t been seen to work with your tenants this will go against you.

With regards to arranging a payment plan, work with your tenants, find out what they can afford;
Is it just going to be for a couple of months?
Is this going to be long term and so forth?
And also can they supply you with evidence to prove with regards to the pay cuts that they are suggesting that they still are able to cover the other costs?

Late rents, what do you do to chase your late rents from your tenants?
A couple of things that we do when the tenant is one day overdue, we send them a gentle text reminder, ‘Just to let you know your rent was due on this date at this amount, are there any problems? Give us a call’
This could just be that they’ve forgotten to set up the standing order or just a minor issue that has appeared and normally after that text you tend to find that the payment hits the account.

When they’re three days overdue, it’s worth giving them a call if no payment is in. Just see if everything’s all right, is there anything you can help with?
And also send them an email to remind them the date that the rent is due, the amount and if they are currently finding themselves in a difficult situation, have they tried approaching universal credit or discretionary payments looking at the other options out there at the moment?
That is when you want to try and work with your tenants as much as possible.

So just a couple of things to recap;
Tenants account statements, you need to make sure this is up to date and you’ve got all the information on there.
Try and work with your tenants on a payment plan if they are unable to meet the current rental payments.
And what policy or procedure have you got in place to chase late rental payments from your tenants?

If you’d like to know more please contact me,
Danielle, Inspired Sales and Lettings
Where we’re with you every step of the way on your lettings journey.