Advice please re new yard rental

[hattie43]

I have let my small yard out without any problems / incidences for the last 15yrs to 3 long term tenants . It was re let again 3 weeks ago to a lady with 3 ponies , 2 of whom are cobs . She wanted to pay weekly as she got paid weekly , no problem , a contract was drawn up and signed . Anyway in the three weeks she’s been here one line of post n rail has been destroyed by one of her cobs , another escaped and was recovered by a neighbour but she had to cut a fence to get him back in , the weekly rent has been late once and not appeared this week despite a message to say it would be paid in the morning . I’m starting to think I’ve made a mistake with taking her . On the surface she is lovely and does look after her ponies so I’m wondering if she’s either broke or not in the swing of things after her cobs antics . I am thinking of sending her a message asking for a reset and if things don’t improve I’ll give notice . I’ve done some digging and she seems to have been having to find yards pretty regularly, the last one due to the land being sold but a previous one sounds like she was hounded out with the land owner threatening to chuck her horses out . What are people’s thoughts , could this be teething issues or something more . Thankyou , not had this before and want to be fair .

It sounds like she’s going to be a pain. This is only the start and she’s not paying. I think you need to come down tough right now - message her immediately about the money and the repairs and see what happens. If you let this slide at the start she’ll do it every time and probably get worse.

Yes that’s my concern really but I don’t want to treat her unfairly . It’s really really hard to find land / stables in my area so part of me thinks she is silly to abuse this .

You should have taken a bit more money upfront , has she had the fencing properly fixed ? a personally I’d be telling her that if the money is late again then you will be giving notice as it’s unacceptable .

How did it go?

I'd give her a little more time to be honest - the horses/ponies may need time to settle in their new surroundings. Also fencing doesn't last forever. You do need to monitor the money issue though - so I think a message about that is fair.

Speaking from (not mine, thankfully, but other’s) bitter experience-

Get rid of her sooner rather than later, OP. Any hint of not paying the rent, they need to go. Yes, horses break fences- that’s not a big deal as long as she pays for the repairs. But normally people are in their best behaviour for the first few months, so if she’s late for the rent now, she’ll be late regularly/ that’ll go later and later until she’s just missing whole weeks.
In over two decades of horse ownership, I have never, ever been overdue with rent/ livery- and if I asked a majority of my horse friends then they wouldn’t have been either.
The land owner I know who was stung in this situation also really struggled to get the person off their land/ it was a nightmare.

Hopefully yours is just a miscommunication but I would document everything- messages, when the rent was due, damage to property etc etc.

As an update - I emailed her in writing saying she wasn’t keeping to the contract requirements and I would be monitoring it for another month . I wouldn’t be reminding her every week and If she didn’t keep to the agreement I’d be giving notice . I am happy to say that did the trick and now she pays as she should .

Hopefully things go smoother from now on. I have to say as a cob owner post and rail on its own has never been enough. I have to have a decent strength electric fence on top. I’m surprised she doesn’t know this though.