Options for Tenants Refusing to Pay Rent Right Now?

[Daniel Sabato]

Anyone having issues with tenants refusing to pay their rent right now? Does anyone have suggestions for dealing with this since they cannot be evicted at this time?

[Brandon Rush]

I am dealing with the issue right now. The first thing you have to do is accept the current situation as it is before anything. This will allow for you to think more clearly vs thinking while you are angry.

The next step is to not play victim (not saying you are) and take ownership of the situation. Think to yourself "how did I get a tenant who did not end up paying?" This will bring out things such as you potentially not vetting him/her correctly during the screening process. Taking ownership will push you to think outside the box no and in the future.

Now since we have accepted it and taken ownership, you have a few options such as:

* Emailing/Mailing the tenant reminding them that rent is due/late, if they for some reason cannot pay rent, please have them provide reasoning. This will show that you made an attempt to collect rent.

* Assuming they say the cannot pay rent because of loss of income you can ask them if they have sought out any rental payment assistance programs to help them cover the rent. You could even have this info ready prior to that conversation and present them options.

* You can also ask, if they are not able to cover the full rental payment, how much can they afford to pay. With that said, you can offer to put them on a rent deferment plan, where they pay back missed rent over a certain period. Example, if their rent payment of $1,000 was missed, you could offer them to pay $1,100 for the next 10 months to catch up. 

In the end if they disagree to any of these options or do not cooperate, just keep all of this documentation for when evictions are allowed. The last thing you want to do is sit on this and not be prepared for the eviction and have to wait a few more months.

My other suggestion is not to try and strong arm them into paying rent. Again, just accept it and try to work with them to come to some agreement so you are getting paid something while awaiting evictions to start.

Good luck my friend, we will get through this!