To come down like a tonne of bricks

[thisisasurvivor]

Hello all

So I rent a house out

Semi reliable tenants

Xmas rent late by ten days
All they could pay was half
So I said fine
Pay half no probs

Now - rent late
So they can only pay half this month

I have been very fair
Rent is 200 less than market value as I don't want to put any pressure on them

Say nothing and hope it won't happen again?

They have been there 3 years so only some issues since dec 22

Plus everyone is struggling financially now :(

I guess it depends if you want to run a charity or not? If you don't need the money well then it's really up to you

Odd thread title

What an appropriate username - ties in with the content of your post perfectly.

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Plus they moved into a freshly painted house with new carpets
Lovely area

Had no intention of raising rent for a few years but this is just not good

For all the haters on here say what ya like
Doesn't bother me

For all the sensible advice 🙏🙌🙏🙌🙏

You also need to learn what you can and can’t do urgently.

Asking questions like you can just suddenly install late fees shows a real lack of knowledge of what you can and can’t do.

Make sure you’re not missing any of your legal responsibilities as well - that can be super expensive!

isn't one of the underlying issues that you are renting it below market value?

That means you run the risk of someone defaulting on the payment as they are low earners or don't have savings to cover anything like redundancy.

It means that you are out of pocket and risk debt yourself.

If you rented it out at the fair market price, at least you would have some cash in hand if they couldn't pay. At the moment, you are operating your business at a loss or close to that.

The fact it's rented at under market value will give tenants the impression you don't need the money or you are out of touch with prices. Neither does you any favours.

But it happened. And that doesn’t help anyone in the here and now. Private landlords are needed, because there are thousands of people who don’t meet the criteria for social housing, and who can’t afford to buy their own home, who absolutely depend on private landlords. I was a tenant for many years until very recently, and if I hadn’t been allowed to rent privately I would have been sleeping on park benches. The anti landlord people are usually those who have never rented themselves but they’re on a crusade to get rid of private landlords, thinking that those who rent can then miraculously get the money to buy the house themselves. They have no idea.

The thing is it seems to me that you're not being fair, you're being nice. Nice is bad news. It breeds resentment and you'll end up being the greedy landlord because of that. What happens, say, if they start needing repairs on the property and yet are behind on the rent? Also, what are you implying about your attitude to your agreement?

Sticking by the agreement would be a firm approach.

Making a mini agreement - based on clear understanding of the reason they can't pay in full and an action plan for getting back on track - would be a gentler and maybe a more compassionate approach. But I would include a clause covers the consequences of failure to meet the mini agreement.

It is really difficult to do but given that you have already been kind and flexible, you need to detach a little and treat it as a business transaction. And I speak as a renter whose landlord is overcharging me compared to market rates 😁

Hope it works out.

I don't understand why you're charging a third ltd than the lowest comparison locally. You're out of pocket that's madness.
You need to be straight with your tenant, "unfortunately your rent isn't even covering my costs, you are aware I charge well below the market rate and now twice in six months you've defaulted on your rent, we need to agree a payment plan. I wrote off Christmas because you have been good tenants, but I just can't do it again, I will reach a point quite quickly where I have to put the house on the market."
To be honest OP you'd be better off if they moved out so you could actually charge a rent that covers your costs. If local rent is £900-£1100 and you want to be generous go for £8-900, you need to build a sinking fund too, what if something needs doing to the property where will the money come from? If you're mortgage and insurance comes to around £600 a month out the other £2-300 in an ISA for a property rainy day.

What evidence do you have they're struggling?

Raise the rent, give them notice or send a solicitors letter explaining the options.

Tell them no let offs with the rent either. You're right, we're all struggling. But rent and utilities must come first imo.

Firstly , considering you have not just let them pay late but you have accepted half of the rent at an already lower rent rate no - you are not being unreasonable!

As a tenant myself, I see my rent as a priority over absolutely everything . It’s my children’s home …. I once paid a few days late when my husband was in hospital and felt awful about it. Times are hard and I have been hit like everyone else and I am behind on a LOT of bills , if I thought my home would be safe if I just said I didn’t have the full rent .. if that was an option , then it would be hard to resist doing it so I think you should really make them see it is not an option. It’s not helping them in the long run .

I don’t know much about the laws for landlords so can’t really help but I imagine adding fees won’t benefit anyone in the long run. Chances are you won’t get it anyway and it could push them into a corner if they’re already struggling and what you don’t want is them just stopping paying rent at all knowing that you can’t evict them until you take it to court ( I think that’s the case ) and that can take a while so they might just think let’s do that and when we’re effectively homeless the council have to help us and then you are left short from rent with court costs on top .

im sorry you’re in this situation, you have obviously been very understanding and it’s coming back to bite you which is sad . I hope you manage to sort something x

You could either issue notice and sell, but I would sell once they have left, this will be easier all round. You could also se to another landlord with a tennant in situ, that way all you need to do is let them know.

So they didn’t budget for Christmas and you subsidised them and now again in a period when there’s been Easter and loads of bank holidays ? They’re taking the mick - time to be firm with them and at the very least expect them to pay the shortfall

Hi OP,

If you have Facebook there’s a really great group called ‘buy to let property group’ which is really good for some advice and a point in the right direction.

Fab thank you

That is not fair, nor is it true. There are always people who want to rent because buying isn't right for them. Early career academics on fixed-term contracts move often and so are in no position to buy. Universities cannot give these staff permanent contracts because a research project's grant will pay two years' salary and then there's no money after that. PhD students need somewhere to live for the three years of their degrees. Undergraduates often don't get halls accommodation in the second year.

I became an accidental landlady so I don't know what the best thing is to do

Seems like every landlord/lady is the “accidental” type. Do your research, be intentional, take responsibility.

I haven't rtft so apologies if this has been said, I work in property management, we allow late/part payments, but arrears must always be paid, get them to propose a payment plan in writing which must be adhered to for the arrears to be repaid, then you have to decide how much you're willing to accept at a time until the arrears are cleared. You're well within your rights to ask how they plan to pay their rent going forward.

Interesting !!!

So say I decide to sell

Would they have three months to vacate?
Can I advertise it during that time?

Sorry but I think OP sounds like a very considerate GENEROUS landlord who is trying to do the right thing by her tenants when it appears that they are at best struggling or at worst taking full advantage of her kindness. All those morons bashing landlords should bore off, yes there are plenty of bad landlords out there but plenty more still bad tenants, and the law (especially with todays news) is 100% on the tenants side with very little recourse available to landlords facing ruin when tenants won’t pay/won’t move.

And in case anyone is wondering what I mean, the section 21 (no fault) eviction have been abolished as of today. We were advised by our solicitor to issue a non paying (and house wrecking) tenant with a section 21 notice as the section 8 notice intended for evictions of non paying tenants is open to abuse by those who know the system and will sporadically pay off small amounts of the overall rent owed meaning the court is very unlikely to enforce an eviction. Which in many cars leaves the landlord in financial dire straits with no other legal options available to get their house back or the moneys owed. In our case we had to make the difficult decision to write off the 10k plus owed in missed rent payment and spend approximately an additional 8k in legal costs to get the twat out. Where is the justice in that? And no, we couldn’t afford the loss and it’s hit us hard.

You should already know the answers to this…

You haven’t even specified where you are. Scotland and England, for example, have differences. So you need to get proper advice specific to where you are.

Selling with tenants in arrears in situ would be a bonkers idea. Unless you are selling to a Ll willing to take them on (unlikely with arrears) you’ll not be able to commit to a date when you can hand over vacant possession as if they don’t leave at the end of their notice period (which they are legally entitled to do) you’ll have to go through the court process for eviction and how long that takes will depend on any backlogs in your area. Around here atm it’s several months…

Your tenants (generally - again depending on where you are) do not have to allow you permission to have viewers to the property. You can go to court to try and enforce a clause in the tenancy should there be one, but again that can take time depending on where you are.

If you want to sell the smartest choice is to do so after your tenants leave - be that at the end of their notice or after being evicted. Of course that does mean you would have an empty property not making rent during that process.

She sounds like a well meaning amateur that has no place being a landlord.

And I say that as a small time landlord (originally what some would call accidental - though I don’t believe in that phrase as everyone has a choice).

Shes taken no steps to find out what she can and can’t do (comments about charging late fees and no clue about the eviction process). Not to mention asking advice without actually bothering to specify to people where they are.

People who don’t bother to find out basics have no place being landlords. It’s not a charity or get rich quick scheme. It’s playing with peoples homes.

And I suspect it’s about to cost the OP (and hopefully her sister as it seems unfair the Op is footing all the hassle) a lot for her naivety and lack of finding out.