The silly season is fast approaching!

[Sez]

Hi All,

I just thought I'd put up some tips for dealing with tenants or agents as the silly season fast approaches. Unfortunately this time of year often brings (in addition to joy & tinsel) a plethora of rent arrears.

If you self manage send your tenants a letter reminding them of their due dates for rent over the holiday period and a reminder of how to pay that rent, if you have a PM, request they do this on your behalf.

Going away?? (Bet you can't wait!) Let your tenants know when you will be away and who to contact in your absence if you won't be contactable OR supply them with an email address you will have regular access to in case anything happens. As with before, if you have a PM, get them to write to the tenants about their emergency contact details and their office hours over the festive season.

TRADIES!!! I can't stress this one enough! Now is a good time to contact your various trades to see when they are working over the holiday period, that way, if something goes wrong you have a list you can quickly refer to, to check who you can call out there.

Do you have a PM? Find out when they are going on holiday and who you can contact while they are away to discuss anything that comes up, and if they are a good PM tell them to have a relaxing time, they likely need it as much as you!

It may seem a little early but October is only a few days away, by reminding tenants of their rental payments over Christmas often many of them will come in and pay extra early to make sure they are ahead and have a little extra disposable cash later on!

I'm sure many of you will add to this with more helpful tips but I thought I'd just bring it up as the more you do now, the less you will be worried about when the holidays come about!

 

[shaleejam]

Do tenants really stop paying rent at Christmas? Is this common? I started reading this forum as we intended on being landlords in the future, I wonder sometimes if it would be worth the stress

 

[Sez]

Unfortunately some tenants do fall behind at Christmas. Being a landlord can be very rewarding its more a matter of making sure you have a good PM and also good insurance Don't let things like this put you off!

 

[wylie]

Do tenants really stop paying rent at Christmas? Is this common? I started reading this forum as we intended on being landlords in the future, I wonder sometimes if it would be worth the stress

Don't let the prospect of something like this put you off being a landlord. Though it must be something that property managers do see a fair bit, we have never had any tenants stop paying, or even pay late through Christmas.

 

[units4me]

Sounds like a whole lot of unnecessary panic and worrying to me.

Just deal with problems if and when they arise.

 

[kathryn d]

I have found that january and february are the worse.This is when the credit card bills are starting to arrive.
We do as we always do...charge them the meagre 1% late fee, we are permitted to (in Nova Scotia). It is always the same tenants who are late the rest of the year.
Usually we also have a couple of tenants who will do a runner, and not pay their last month's rent at this time of year too. Saves them even more money..until we catch them. With the privacy rules, it is getting more difficult to gather the appropriate information to collect from them.
Doesn't matter..all in the game of property investing.

 

[Sez]

I guess from my point of view I have seen a lot of the worst behaviour over the years. As such, I tend to be a little over prepared for this time of year!!! Majority of tenants won't be a problem but anything to save you time while you're enjoying your chrissy break works for me!! I am also the kind of person to send out a reminder of SES numbers and what to do in the case of severe storm damage etc. as a result I only had 1 call due to storm damage in the recent severe weather we had here. As the old saying goes "I'd rather have it and not need it....."