Today we are talking about how to handle late rent and what happens if you have to evict a tenant. Every landlord we know hates it when they don’t get the rent at the beginning of the month. Time goes by quickly when rent is late, and before you know it you’ll be in the first week of the new month with last month’s rent not paid yet.
In Virginia, you have a five day grace period but if a tenant has not paid by day six, that rent is officially late. Give the tenant a call if rent doesn’t come in and talk about the situation. You never really know what’s going on. Maybe the tenant just lost his job and he’s struggling to get all the rent together. When you understand the situation, you’re in better shape than if you have a tenant who has the money, but simply isn’t willing to pay rent for one reason or another. Someone who is willing to work with you is helpful.
If you can work something out with your tenant, try. Maybe they can pay you a little now and you can put something in writing that addresses the rest of the rent. Do what you can to settle the problem. Then, move forward. If you aren’t getting a response from the tenant or your tenants are not willing to work with you and nothing is happening, you’ll need to move towards an eviction.
The first step in an eviction process is serving the tenants with a 5 Day Notice to Pay or Quit. If you’re not familiar with that notice, contact an attorney or call us and we can give you some advice. That notice can be delivered by a sheriff or sent via certified mail. Either way, it’s the first step towards an eviction. If you still don’t hear from the tenants after that notice is filed, you have to continue taking steps to get that tenant evicted from your property.
Hopefully, you won’t have to go that route, and you can get something worked out with your tenant. It’s important not to let a bad tenant continue to make promises. If they don’t follow through on what they say they will do or pay you when they promise to pay, you’ll get even further behind and they will have a very hard time catching up with what they owe you.
Please contact us at Richey Property Management if you have any questions about this blog, or you’d like to discuss the topic further.
