Tenant always a week behind on rent

D

donkey

After just reading a few other posts in this section re tenants being a month behind on rent maybe Im raising a non issue here but my tenant always seems to be a week behind on the rent.

For example, this month they paid from the 28th march to the 25th april.

Am I complaining about nothing.... I would have hoped that they paid to Friday 2nd may.

If the tenant still only pays 4 weeks ie to the 22nd may next month then can I ask the PM to speak to them?

thanks for your opinion
 
Do they know they are a week behind?

Sometimes I fell behind myself because I paid 4 weeks to the month and didn't count. A gentle reminder can do wonders.
 
happened to us once in our previous rental, new agency took over the management and we get sent a notice saying by the way you are overdue on rent since around 2 years ago!

Turns out one of our automatic payments failed but the bank and old agency both didn't tell us(the funds were in the account the payment just didnt happen for no reason whatsoever)

We just had two years worth of ledger payments in arrears without us ever knowing. Easy fix we just paid the extra and got on with it but pretty crappy to have that on our rental history due to an oversight on our part and laziness on the pm's
 
I questioned the same thing, tenant pays monthly and when I get my statement at the end of the month, they are a week behind.

It's actually only 4 days as I've been corrected by the PM, They have a partial payment as well.
 
When I had my properties managed by PMs I didn't know/care if the tenants were paying on time or not and it turned out they weren't.

I self manage my properties now and my tenants pay monthly on a particular day (usually the day they got the keys/signed up/agreed). I just text them on the day rent is due.
 
zepth said:
happened to us once in our previous rental, new agency took over the management and we get sent a notice saying by the way you are overdue on rent since around 2 years ago!

Turns out one of our automatic payments failed but the bank and old agency both didn't tell us(the funds were in the account the payment just didnt happen for no reason whatsoever)

We just had two years worth of ledger payments in arrears without us ever knowing. Easy fix we just paid the extra and got on with it but pretty crappy to have that on our rental history due to an oversight on our part and laziness on the pm's
Click to expand...

I've had the opposite occur. When i was renting in Adelaide I set up an automatic payment schedule but thought that it didnt work so was also paying manually by online banking. Six months later it was realised and the PM called me and made up some story about how they're not allowed to disburse it back out so i was basically rent free for the next 6 months while it caught back up.
 
We have tenants continuously a week behind. They are sent a 5 day over due reminder by PM. They have been behind as far as 12 days but didn't make the 14 days they need to be behind to issue notice. At present we sit at 7 days. A week before RE is to pay me I check in to see where things are at. When they were 12 days behind I checked in on the 14th to see if they paid or were given notice.
I am not bothered by it - we are getting paid and we are getting good rent.

What I don't get and the PM has explained with any sense is why they are withholding $160 on account each month. The justification I was given is that they don't pay landlords less than a full weeks rent. Apparently $160 equates to 3.5 days according to him. It doesn't make sense because there was a month where they did pay me less than a full weeks rent. I asked to be paid the $160 in the next run and was told no - they don't do it that way.

Q. Do PMs store rent payments in RE trust accounts that earn the REA interest?
 
This happened to my last tenant and it was inadvertent on their behalf. Once I provided correct payment details, they got up to date and stayed that way.

For persistant behaviour, in WA I would issue a breach notice. The tenant can also work out a payment plan with the PM or with you if you are self managing.
 
perthguy said:
This happened to my last tenant and it was inadvertent on their behalf. Once I provided correct payment details, they got up to date and stayed that way.

For persistant behaviour, in WA I would issue a breach notice. The tenant can also work out a payment plan with the PM or with you if you are self managing.
Click to expand...

Breach notice a good idea after 14 total days behind, and ask the managing agent if they can set up a direct debit from the tenant account.
 
Donkey, they may be a number of issues at play. Sometimes tenants think that if they pay 4 weeks, that equates to a month. After a while the PM should pick up that they have made this mistake, and correct. Another item may be, what day or days of the month does the agent disburse. It may be a day or a few days before the end of the month, it varies so much across the country. The next thing is how do they pay. Some software allows you to flick a switch to hold payments until the usual bank clearance time has occurred.
Also do not recalculate rent monthly 52 divided by 12, you will lose a fraction of a day :)
 
CHAOS said:
Q. Do PMs store rent payments in RE trust accounts that earn the REA interest?
Click to expand...

Short answer, no. It should be held in a trust account that doesn't attract interest.

I don't understand their method, the only reason to withhold funds is for repairs.

zepth said:
Easy fix we just paid the extra and got on with it but pretty crappy to have that on our rental history due to an oversight on our part and laziness on the pm's
Click to expand...

Similar happened to us.

Paid rent using internet banking on the phone, accidentally hit the 3 instead of the 6. Oversight on our part for not checking, the PM didn't tell us until the next routine inspection, about 4 months later! It was an easy fix, but a bit p*ssed our ledger looks like we withheld $300 for 4 months!!

Donkey - if they pay monthly, it should be calculated on a calendar month basis (rent/7x365/12) and then they would have a certain date to pay on. Another option is to do an adjustment on the rent to x day and then have the tenants pay weekly/fortnightly (their pay cycle usually works best) on a Thursday for instance. The PM should've already suggested these options to you.

They way I explain rent to the tenants, particularly with monthly, I don't care how it's paid whether that be weekly or fortnightly or just payments whenever as long as it is paid in full by the due date. Most of my tenants pay monthly, but there's a couple (usually in the lower socioeconomic areas) that pay fortnightly with their payments.
 
If you're residential, just bite the bullet and let them slip.

If commercial and in high demand spot, issue a legal notice and lock his shop ASAP. He'll get more scared than you.
 
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