An old couple in difficulty and cannot pay rent, what could I do?

[Jo Zhou]

Hi, everybody, could you give me some advises for my situation?

I have an older couple (in their mid 70s, they are in the wheel chairs), they have been paying the rent on time for 5 years. Lately, they have been late for rent because they were running out of money. They have secured loans from some veteran credit union to pay the last 5 months rents. Their lease will end by March 31, 2018. At first, they said they would move to live with their children, then they said they would move to a mobile home, yesterday, they were crying to my property manager, they want to stay 2 more days until some government facility would take them. They are donating all their belongings to the salvation army. Of course, we allow them stay free for 2 days. However, I wonder if they have no place to go, what would we do? Evict them? We don't want to through them on the street, they are really nice and decent people. What else would we do to help them? We cannot provide the free rent too long because we have a mortgage to pay also.

Does anybody have similar situation? What will it end up? I have property manager to handle this sad situation, but she will ask us what we want to do eventually. So what will be our bottom line? Not hurting the tenants, not hurting us too?

Thank you.

[Jay Hinrichs]

this being pro landlord site you pretty much know what folks are going to recommend.. 

and of course you have your own debts.

Its a tough one.. I know if it was me I would let them live there rent free for 3 to 6 months to get their situation handled..  I would consider it one of my charitable givings for that year.. 

Although in a humerous note I fell for the one in Indiana two years ago my PM calls  tenant cant afford rent and heat and they have a baby etc etc.. record colds.. so sure thing no problem give them 3 months free then pay it over the remaining months.. kind of like utls do.. well you know what happened they lived 3 months free and bolted out on the rest of their lease.. thats my style of landlording i go backwards.

its these very situations that i was horrible at ... I could never make the tough decision until I figured out the folks were simply freddy freeloaders then I would do whats necessary.

all the thoughts above for help should be explored.. and depending what state an eviction could drag on for sometime if these folks want to go to court.. Judge may give them extra leniency.

But do what your heart tells you to do.. if they are good people and being honest .. do unto others.