Tenants Making Rent Payment

[Brandon Ness]

This is my first rental property- a duplex in Sioux Falls, SD. Inherited one tenant, who has been good so far. The other tenant I moved in; fully vetted, including employer reference and last 2 landlord references, all of which were positive. I tried to run credit, but they had insufficient credit history, so I waived that requirement.

Issue is, currently has been a struggle getting them to adapt to an online system to pay rent. The first month, I tried to have them use Venmo, but they couldn’t figure it out, so I had to drive out to the property and accept cash. Not wanting to repeat, I mailed them an invoice for the cash payment, stating that from now on rent payments would be done through the Cozy system, which I think is an easy interface to use for both parties. I also texted them & emailed them reminders to set up there payment method in Cozy several times throughout the month of December (all of our direct communication up until this point is through text). However, Jan1 rolls around and no rent payment. So I reach out, and they say they’ll pay today (Friday, Jan 4). Today, they text and want to pay via money order, and they want me to pick it up. I’m out of town, so this won’t work. My questions are:

1) how would you deal with this situation? 

2) at what point do you evict for a situation like this? Still have not received rent; lease has a 5 day late fee, after that period has passed, how soon to eviction?

3) do you waive credit requirement if no credit history, or was this a bad sign? Tenants are a couple in their late 20s.

Thanks for any and all feedback.