Tenant getting late with payments

[Ben M.]

I’m on my 5th month owning my first duplex rental property. One of the tenants I inherited has been a tenant for 4 years. Per the last property manager she supposedly pays but always late. However, she is now almost 2 months late with various reasons for getting delayed. She does pay partial at random times but sometimes we don’t hear from her for a week or so. She seems to have the intent to pay but is having a hard time catching up. I know that it’s good to enforce rules and so forth but the fact that this is a 4 year tenant seems to give me a reason to want to work with her. Has anyone ran into a similar problem and what strategy did you use that helped the tenant to catch up with payments? Thank you.