How long would you let a good tenant slide on the rent??
 

I just let it go for 3 months. I dont know, I actually feel pretty good about it. In my ten years of landlording , she has been my best tenant. Older lady, keeps the place clean, rarlely gripes, and is real easy to get along with.
She has been late in the past, but she always called ahead to ask if it would be o.k. for x ammount of days, and she always paid exactly when she said she would.
I was getting nervous. She lost her job, and did find new employment, but fell seriously behind in the interim.
An eviction notice on the door was on my list of things to do this weekend, and then she called me tonight to tell me I could pick up the full ammount owed this monday. I am relieved, I hate screening new tenants, and she really is a good person who fell into a tough spot. She has been a tenant for 5 years with O problems in my book.

Glad that she came through with the funds. She does sound like a good renter...

My new tenants direct deposited their July rent on June 25th. I love them.

I don't think I would have let it go for that long, even it she had been there for 5 years. I had a tenant once that had been in the apartment for 8 years, and he would be a little late once in a great while, and we always worked it out. But 3 months is a long time unless you have some assurance you will get the whole back and current rent at the end of that time.

I draw the line when I start giving them money ;) It's happened.
Life is good, glad it worked out for you!

Being a landlord can be very rewarding :)

I went four months without rent with a tenant last year...she was laid off and had a hard time finding a job.

She is a wonderful person and, while she hasn't fully caught up, she is now employed and paying off what she owes in installments every month.

I knew it was a temporary thing...the calculus was easy in my mind: the money was not worth putting someone on the street, at least this particular person.

I'm feeling some collective thought patterns here with some of the best peeps ;)
Kudo's Seahawk

For a good tenant, I would try to forgive a month or two over the long run knowing what it would cost to evict, clean and re-rent the place. I just don't think I would let them in on the plan. The landlord behind me is doing this right now because the guy is quiet and not a problem.

Hard to find those anymore.

I would have taken the money as soon as it was due.
Just wait for her in a tree in the front yard, then when she comes home,
drop down,
monkey roll, and take the money.

They tell me they can't pay the rent because they lost their job; has happened many times.
I ask if I can come in and talk to them; of course they say yes.
I listen to their story, then I go into the kitchen and if there's no beer or booze laying around and little food, I let them go. (fact not fiction story). Once I gave the tenants money for food.

My wife says I'm a lousy landlord, but she loves me.

I get into somewhat similar positions in the pawnshop. I usually hold something that's overdue a few months extra for someone I've known for a while. I guess I must derive some pleasure when they finally show up and ask "you don't still happen to have my widget here do you?" and their face lights up when I say it is.
Jim

Yeah, but you still make money.

Rob, I think that's great about the booze and beer, but how can you get by unemployed w/o beer? I'd have to my my decision based on the food you saw.

The beer gets a pass. ;)

It's situations like this that got me out of the landlord business. I would have been like the OP, 90 days and I would get off the schneid and put my foot down, but I always hated these dealings; (this sort of largesse is reserved for a great tenant, crappy tenants are another story)

Like Milt says, great tenants are really hard to find.

Rob's advice about the beer and food in the kitchen is inspired . . .

(and unlike Milt, beer doesn't get a pass, that goes back to my dealings with crappy tenants):)

Ahh, true story. Wasn't planned or thought out and it was many years ago when I was a young man. Pulled up in my Porsche with a wad of cash in my pocket from other tenants (first of the month) and was told no job, no rent. They had some dear little children and when I saw the bare fridge I made the call.

For the most part I used a property manager so I could just keep it bizzness, but this was a time between managers. Landlord and mortgage bizzness is a tough bizzness and the down side of it can kill a guy if he's not prepared.

Prior to all of this, I was a lousy tenant! A landlords worse nightmare ;)

Zero, zero zero. I have tenants, and the policy is that the rent gets paid on the first of the month. I give 7 days grace, and then there is a $50 late fee.

Legally, I can give the magic "three days notice" as soon as the rent is late, but I normally don't. If they are out of town or something and can't get me a check in time [ridiculous...], then I cut them a bit of slack.

Worst case: A woman who WAS a court reporter who was laid off and got 30 days behind on her rent at one point. Me and a partner own rental places, and we worked out a payment plan to get her back on track and guess what? She's doing it. She was this type who pleaded poverty each month, and after 7 days I put the 3 days notice on the door. Sure enough...she and/or her ex-husband somehow FOUND the money to pay the rent! Funny how that works~

Dude: I've done this crap with her 10 of the last 12 months! Last month I finally told her that I was going to my lawyer and was going to spend the $1700 to evict her. I offered her a last ditch program: Pay a bunch extra every two weeks [including late fees...] and be caught up by the end of July, or she can hit the road.

GUESS WHAT folks? Guess what-? SHE'S PAYING!

The long and short? I work my ass off at my airline [yeah, it is real good fun to stand in pouring rain and blowing wind at 4 AM in some stupid city in the middle of nowhere looking at hydraulic fluid pouring out of a broken airplane and knowing that I will be awake until noon, and have been awake since 7 AM the previous day~], and I work my ass off when I am home trying to maintain these rental places. I'm not ABOUT to let some LAZY female dog just sit around watching TV and hanging out on the internet each day and live in one of my places while I'm working THAT hard!

Dude, you're not running your business right. You've let someone go 3 months? Sorry, that is just wrong. Why is that wrong? Not only isn't unfair to you, it is unfair to the other people who rent from you. And unfair to the people who rent from other landlords in the neighborhood. They worked hard to find a job, and they work hard to keep that job. Cutting people slack is a slippery slope- once you start down that road, you very easily get too far down it!

I will admit that crippled old people are a different story. I don't have any of those, since I don't accept section 8 tenants.

Listen: If you FORCE them to pay, 9 times out of 10 they will.....

N!

There's an easy way to make money and then there's a hard way; what people don't realize is.... it's a choice ;)

Easy come, easy go; money doesn't mean that much to me; relationships are far more important than money ever will be.

there's no right way or wrong way, its just your way fwiw.

Good one! :D

fastfredracing, good on you for being patient. Glad to see there are some landlords with a '6th sense' about these things.

+1! Just passing through, drinking coffee on this memorable day...Happy 4th everyone!!! Two distinctly opposite approaches clearly displayed in this thread. What goes around, comes around. Some folks are successful, well adjusted, and happy, others, not so much...money has nothing to do with it imo. I've "carried" renters before, probably will again if the situation merits. I sleep well at night :)

4 weeks before I would file notice to vacate. That can always be rescinded if they pay up.
IMO A good tenant wouldn't be late with the rent longer than that.
It seems our ideas vary considerably on what a good tenant is.

It's a crap shoot.

Four months ago I agreed to a rent reduction for a restaurant tenant who spent an hour crying (literally) to me how bad business was, and how difficult it was to make ends meet.

In the end she was paying substantially under market—but she was happy (or so I thought)—and the karma was good (or so I thought).

Two weeks ago she rang me to tell me she's moving out on short notice to new premises that she has bought! I checked with my realtor, and it turns out she bought this place four months ago—and has spent the intervening time fitting it out and redecorating at vast expense.

Part of the business.

I was forced into the retal business by not being able to sell my house in GA. The first renter turned into a squatter ( can't be called a renter if you don't pay rent). i tried workign with her, she had great sob stories. Found out her ex-husbands number via a friend. She is in debt for over $10,000 to others already. Luckily she let easily with no court required and house only needed a quick ckeaning. Kept her security deposit.

Second renter was great for 6 months, then later and later every month for the next 6. Wife flew out to check on house at end of lease. DIRTY as he!!. Kept his $1200 security deposit.

Latest is the widow of a Marine killed in combat with a little boy. (I actually put her husband in the Marine Corps). She stayed at my house for a few months with my wife when I moved out here to start my new job. Rent is direct deposited on the 2nd every month. I am losing money every month, but KNOW my house is taken care of and I am not paying the entire mortgage every month myself.

Renting a house 5 states away can be challenging to ssay the least.

Tell me about it. I got a bit of a shock when I went to see my rental in VA this past April for the first time in two years. I only rented it out because I had to. I'm only a hard ass on rent because I can't afford to carry that place very long without timely rent payments. Carrying it vacant for a few months this spring when I owed the IRS a phat check and was trying to close on another house here just about broke me. It really cut into my monthly guns and ammo budget.

You should explain your dilemma very carefully to your tenants. :)

Being a landlord isn't for everybody. Being late on rent, for someone with a proven track record, is "chump change", even if never collected, compared to the costs (typically unrecoverable) for a "bad tenant" imo. A "bad" one can cost tens of thousands at the drop of a hat :(. How's walking ALL over brand new high $ hardwood floors in golf cleats (house adjacent to a ritzy C. club fairway), "just because they can" sound? Not my tenant...whew!. I've lost money on a few, but when you get "good ones", they're like gold mines, and I don't like the gamble/hassle of "sweating the small stuff" which is what a few months rent is imo. If one can't "eat" the costs of doing business, they shouldn't be in the business (I realize sometimes it's not by the landlord's choice). All investments have risks imo...YMMV.

I would have a hard time not telling everyone that would listen that her restaurant should be avoided if they value their health!
There are always users that will make it impossible to give breaks to those that really need one.

Now that's a douche nozzle!

Mine let me slide for about 8 months while Workers Comp insurance was trying to starve me out.

When i finally got paid i gave him every dime in cash. Boy was he a happy camper.

Remember a few months ago, I posted about a friend who had been here since September of last year? Well, he finally got a job and started paying up a couple months ago. Every extra penny he had went to me.
Although he moved out on the 1st of this month, he's still paying back what he owes.

I agree. But I, like many others, was thrown into the landlord business by not being able to sell. I would have been much happier just breaking even or even a managable loss, IF I could have sold it.