Late Payments but otherwise great tenants… what to do?

[Brandon Bozarth]

[Tommy Townsend]

The only thing I can add to this is, there is a lack of grace in the world.  Instead of kicking people out on a whim, try to understand where they are coming from.  This particular situation, it sounds like the tenants have been up front about their difficulties and are honest about their situation.  There are multiple ways it can turn out but how about two very different hypothetical scenarios:

1) You kick them out, they have a hard time getting established elsewhere, you have a hard time back filling with someone equally as good of a resident (taking care of the place, paying rent, etc.).  You go through 3 more tenants who are awful to the place and are difficult to work with before finally finding someone else you call a good resident.

2) You find out their medical deal is temporary and they expect to get back on track in 2 months when one of them returns to work (I'm making this part up).  You have them pay the late fees and you set that as a deadline.  They start paying on time again and are all caught up - what if after that they rent for 10 more years with no more problems?  You would have made a move for nothing and possibly caused yourself more problems.

Before I'm labeled as a newbie, I am a professional property manager.  I've heard every excuse (just about) and I've seen every scenario.  I work for a large company and while we do not have a lot of flexibility for waiving late fees we do have the option to have some grace, try to figure out what someone's situation is, if it's likely to resolve itself, and if there is anything more we can do to help them be good tenants.  Those of us in the rental business provide homes, no one said we couldn't be human about it and not make it 100% money focused.