Since I’ve listed my rental properties for sale all hell has broken loose in terms of being able to collect my rent. At the moment I’ve got two tenants behind on rent, a third with a bounced cheque, and a fourth who just moved out and owes me for 1/2 a month. Just when you think all is going well…
To go back a bit in time, one of my tenants who’s been great in every other way (except she’s never been on time with rent) just recently moved out. One month ago I did my usual phone call to find out when she’d be able to pay me, but instead of giving me date for payment she informed me that she needed to move. This wasn’t entirely surprising since she’s had such difficulty making rent, but filling vacancies is the most time consuming landlord activity I deal with. I advertised the apartment with very little interest until I offered a rental incentive of 1/2 a moth’s free rent. So instead of being out another whole month’s rent, I’m only out 1/2 and the flat is now rented with a great tenant.
I have another tenant in the same building who’s been paying me rent in small increments and never on time. As of July 1 she now owes me $1,125. Read more…
Steve Rent, Rental Property Bounced Cheque, Rent
Not long ago I proclaimed that: ‘Rent day is my new favourite day‘. I may now have to recant. Since then I have two more tenants start falling behind in their rent. The first tenant owes me a monthly rent of $650 and has been pretty much behind from the start. Though, she has been very good at keeping me in the loop and getting rent up to date within about 7 days. She’s a great tenant and for that I’ll happily work with her to ensure she can manage her cash-flow and maintain her rent to me.
The second tenant first went into arrears last month. She owes a monthly rent of $675. Unlike my first tenant she did not notify me that she did not have enough money and I didn’t learn of it until the cheque was returned NSF. On that occasion she claimed to not know it bounced nor that she did not have enough money in the bank to make the payment. Although I was suspicious, I waived my usual $25 late-payment fee and told her to let me know in advance if she was going to be short in the future. That way I could hold her cheque and not have to go through the hassle of collecting the rent all over again.
On the second of this month I received a text message (yeah, you heard me right, a text message) from this tenant asking me if I could hold her rent. I was not happy. First of all I had already deposited all the rent money, and second, text messaging is not a reliable way to work out a late rental payment with your landlord. I’ve never texted with her before. The next day I called and not so politely informed her that it was unacceptable to text me the day after rent is due asking for a reprieve. This time I’m holding her to my $25 late fee and I’m now expecting this money on March 12th via Interac Money Transfer. We’ll see.
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Steve Rent Bounced Cheque, Rent
So Rent Day has gone from my least favourite day of the month, to the best. Since buying my first property I’ve stopped paying rent and started collecting it. There’s nothing like going to the bank machine and dropping a bunch of money into your account knowing you’ve earned it and it’s paying for your investment.
With my first rental property, collecting rent was pretty straight forward. My tenant lives in the flat above me so it’s just a matter of knocking on the door – there’s no hiding from me here. Now, my other two properties are a whole different story.
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Steve Rent Bounced Cheque, Mortgage Payment, Rent
