Tenant not responsive and unsure what to do

[Shawn S.]

In case you didn't read my profile a short understanding of us.  We have been renting for 8 years and we have been learning this as we go.  We have recently started using Bigger Pockets which has been a HUGE help so thank you for everything so far.

I'm sorry this is long winded - I wanted to explain as best as possible because we sure could use help with this one and I wanted an answer based on a full understanding

We have a tenant that has been late almost every month for the first 6 months of the lease term.  Normally every payment was less than 15 days late.  We went to them about the 6 month mark and looked to see what the problem was.  By the end of that meeting we agreed that the tenant would pay weekly and  we set up a quarterly schedule and they had to abide by it or the eviction process would start.  From then on they did pretty well.  Finally at about the 11 month mark they only paid a partial weekly payment and then one of the weeks in the 12th month they missed completely!

Now they are month to month.  Last week I was pretty annoyed that my wife told me they fell behind because I feel we bent over backwards.  Last week I sent them a letter via email telling them that they have the next week to catch back up and to set up another quarterly schedule.  We even gave them the option to go back to paying monthly but we told them the flexing is over, its due pay it or leave (obviously nicer than that).  We told them we needed the decision by yesterday and they never responded.  But last Monday they paid a full weekly payment?!?!  They are still behind though.  They act as if the missed payments don't exist.

In summary we are still trying to work with them because as we have experienced they will eventually catch up and break even.  I just dont like that they do it on their terms rather then the terms agreed to.  Now we can't get them to respond to an email on how to proceed! I sometimes feel its not worth it to continue this because every week its a guess if they will pay. Am I wrong for this?  If not and the next step is to evict how do I go about that with the special circumstances we are in?  Also they are currently not a full month behind only about 3/4 month behind, can we still evict based on that? 

I appreciate any feedback as I am starting to think our biggest mistake in this was being nice in the first place.  Again we are still figuring out how to play all the different situations throughout the years.  Because of this situation we are far more strict with the second rental we just felt that we needed to try to at least finish out the contract with this one.

Shawn