Rental property - giving tenants a break

[user1494050295]

Hi two of my three tenants have been laid off due to the restaurant they worked in closing down. It’s a national chain and I think when this is over it will be up and running again. They have informed the estate agent who manages the flat I own and said they are ok for a while. They are awesome tenants and I am keen to keep them. How are landlords working with their tenants during this period. Are they giving tenants a rent reduction to be paid back at a later date in instalments or just taking the loss. I don’t have a mortgage on the flat. Any advice regarding working with tenants is appreciated ty

Give them some breathing space and see what happens. The government has announced support for employers to retain staff by covering up to 80% of wages so they may receive that and be able to pay something towards the rent.

The situation is changing all the time so I’d sit tight and ask them to keep you updated.

We’ve sold ours but we would have applied for the mortgage holiday to give them a breather.

Good tenants are worth their weight in gold. We had to sell as our houses kept getting destroyed.

They are awesome tenants and I am keen to keep them

This is worth far more than money.

If you have no mortgage and won’t suffer from the loss i’d give them a 3 month break and go from there. Or a 6month half rent.

That's so so nice of you. My landlord hasn't even bothered to text to see if we're okay

Apply for the mortgage breather and reduce the rent if you can afford it, because apart of the rent they still have to eat and no money is coming to them at this time.

If you can afford to, give them a rent break or reduce to the min you need. They'll still have bills etc to pay for in the meantime and who knows how long this will last. Good tenants are hard to find and I'm sure it'll be appreciated.

Wow. Wish my landlords were like you!
We've never missed a rent payment in the 3 years we've lived here but know even in these circumstances if we did they'd want us out. They don't even let us hang pictures up

@allaboardthesinkingship -- neither has mine

Reduce the rent if you can afford to and there is any sign that they are starting to struggle. Or even offer them some money off anyway as a goodwill gesture.

Ty all I don’t have a mortgage on the property but I have to pay inheritance tax from the income I spoke to hmrc and they are supportive about the situation. Me and my partner work in HE so at the moment are ok. Can I afford them paying less - sort of. I want to keep them and tbh we are all in the same boat. We have a mortgage on our place so if one of us loses our jobs the situation will be difficult.

I have stressed to the estate agent to keep communication open so we don’t hit a situation which becomes untenable and that we must work with them during this period

The answers you receive will depend on whether the people replying are tenants or landlords...the one will expect the other to foot the bill.

We are in a similar position and it’s really hard to know how to proceed. On the one hand we can probably afford the mortgage for the moment and could defer it for a while if needs be but on the other hand we have already lost a lot of money in various ways (5 figures so far) and I’m concerned about cash flow. One of my tenants is a single mum and would be mortified to miss a payment but I’ve told her absolutely to not worry at all about the rent and once things are back to normal we can review the situation, but she is adamant she wants to keep trying to pay as much as she can. The other was fishing for discounts and pausing the rent as soon as it started getting mentioned in the news. He has actually since been made redundant but his girlfriend has also been talking about moving in so presumably she could contribute, and I don’t know if he is doing anything to get some cash for the time being eg getting some part time work at the supermarket etc. It’s tricky!

I'm going to offer a 2/3 reduction on an already reduce rent but it is my DS3 he is a very good tenant.