Learn How to Collect Rent and Make Landlording More Fun!

 

By Mike Lautensack

Collecting Partial Rent

There's another concept we've got to think about, which is collecting partial rent versus full rent. Tenants will try to do this. Let's say they owe $1,000 in rent. Now they're a little short. They'll send you $500 on the first or second or third or whatever. Then what they'll do is they'll say, "I don't get paid until the next two weeks," and then they'll try to pay the other $500 in two weeks.

If you accept that once, that becomes the standard again and now that will start to happen each and every month. Again, I'm not putting my foot down on this, because I know it can be difficult. Don't accept partial rent, because you get into that process and it's going to continue.

Now, if a tenant's got $500 and they're willing to send it in, I typically would say, yes, get it, because half of the rent is better than nothing, quite frankly. Explain to them that you don't accept partial rents. Also explain to them that just because they're paying half now and half in two weeks does not waive the late fee. The late fee is applied.

I would tell them, "Please send in the half rent. The late fee still applies, and also we are going to start the legal eviction on the 10th or the 12th or the 15th of the month, if the other monies don't come. We are not going to slow down our eviction process simply because we're waiting for you to pay rent."

You as the landlord must move forward to do what you need to do. Don't ever let the tenant tell you when they're going to send money in and then you delay your actions. If your policy is to evict on the 15th, go ahead and do that, even if they paid some money, because you do not want to get into the habit of letting them tell you how to run your business

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Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service company located in Philadelphia, PA.