Posted by Whether its just a one time occurrence or habitual, dealing with late rent payments can be frustrating. We’ve created this quick guide as requested by a few of our readers. As a quick shameless plug, if you are finding it hard to keep track of your tenant’s rent payments and deposits, we highly recommend using yuhu for all of your landlording needs 🙂.
If Your Tenant is Usually On-Time with Their Rent Payments…
Many landlords are quick to charge a $25+ late fee for all offenders, which can sometimes leave tenants with a bad taste in their mouth. If your tenant is a first time offender, we highly recommend waiving the late rent fee in good faith. This can have multiple positive effects for your property and brand:
- The Power of Brand: If you are operating a branded rental property, waiving a late rent fee for first time offenders can provide your company with a positive brand image (which is unfortunately hard to come by for landlords). Your tenants will share their positive experience or refer your property to their friends (word-of-mouth), making it that much easier to rent vacant units in the future.
- Happy tenants = happy landlords:Â Tenants are people too. If your tenants are happy, they will stay longer. Turnovers cost you time and money. By keeping your tenants happy (with actions as small as waiving a rent fee), you increase their length of stay, decrease your turnovers, and save money (much more than the $25 fee you waived!)
Of course if your tenant is habitually late with their rent payment (or skips a payment altogether), there are steps you should take to minimize your losses (and time spent chasing late rent payments).
If Your Tenant is Habitually Late with Their Rent Payments…
To minimize your risk exposure, we recommend the following:
- Provide a Late Rent Notice the next day: In many jurisdictions, this is your first step towards evicting a tenant for non-payment of rent. Because the process can take a few months, it’s important to get started right away. In Ontario, the Landlord Tenant Board recommends you provide your tenant with an N4 form the day after the missed payment. In other jurisdictions, you should provide your tenant with a 14-day eviction notice (stating they have 14-days to pay the outstanding amount or face eviction.)
- If rent has not been received after 14-days: If the tenant hasn’t paid their outstanding balance within the 14-day grace period, it is important to start filing for eviction with your local landlord tenant board. In Ontario you should fill out an N8 form, which starts the eviction process.
It is important to be quick with habitually late payers, as the eviction process can take months (costing you lost rent and a significant headache).
Minimizing Late Rent Payments
There are a few easy steps you can take to minimize the amount of late rent payments:
- Screen your tenants well (we’ve written a great guide on screening you can view here by clicking here.)
- Remind your tenants about their rent payment a few days before its due
- Make it easy for your tenants to pay (e-transfers are becoming increasingly popular, set up pre-authorized debit, or accept debit/credit cards)
Let the Robots Work For You
You can use a platform like yuhu to do the heavy lifting for you. We automatically send rent due reminder emails to your tenants, provide them with online methods of payment (debit/credit cards, preauthorized debit), and provide your tenant with a 14-day eviction notice if rent has not been received. That’s just a few of our many time (and money) saving features.
Questions
Feel free to email with any questions at [email protected].
If you are looking for an easy way to manage your rental properties online, visit us at www.yuhu.io. We make lease generation, online marketing, payment collection, and managing your rental units as easy as clicking a button!
🙂