One of the most difficult tasks of every landlord and property managers is to reduce late rent payments. Most tenants don’t understand the stress property managers and landlords go through. As a property manager or landlord, you should make it your top priority to ensure that you collect your rent on time. If you are struggling with collecting your rent on time from your tenants, this article will teach you powerful tips for reducing late rent payments.
Top Tips For Reducing Late Rent Payments
- Improve Your Tenant Screening Process
Certainly, your tenant screening process will determine the type of tenants you will get. If you want quality tenants who will always pay their rent on time, you will need to put effort into improving the quality of your tenant screening process.
Make sure you check tenant’s job and his credit score during your screening. This will enable you to know if the tenant can afford your rent.
- Automate Rent Payments
Automating rent payments will help in reducing late rent payments. If you are a landlord or a property manager, one of the best strategies you can adopt is to require your tenants to pay their rent via “auto-pay”. When it comes to auto-pay, the most common option is to adopt the ACH transaction which will automatically deduct your rent from tenant’s account. This system allows you to always get your rent on time every month.
- Reward Early Payments
Rewarding tenants who make their rent payments early every month is a great system for reducing late rent payments. A tenant is likely to make paying his rent a top priority if he knows he will be rewarded for paying rent on time. You can decide to give a discount or a refund towards the next month’s rent when a tenant pays his rent on time.
- Enforce Late Fees
Certainly, some people respond better when you use brute force. While some tenants will be encouraged to make their payment early as a result of the reward you introduced, others will wait for something more forceful. You need to ensure you introduce penalty fees for tenants who pay their rent late and enforce such fees. When a tenant doesn’t pay his rent on time, let him know he will pay late fees and further delay will force you to report him to the three credit bureaus.
- Know When To Evict
Don’t be afraid to evict a tenant who doesn’t pay his rents on time. If your tenant continually refuses to pay his rent, you are well within your legal rights if you decide to evict him. Eviction is a long, complicated process. However, it could be an online solution to save your property.
