3-Day Notice

So, it's the 6th of the month.  As a landlord, you included a grace period, which allows the resident to pay rent without paying a late fee until the 5th.  STILL NO RENT.  So what do you do?  How do you handle it?

Well first let me say that I am not giving legal advice, nor am I suggesting that you should follow my practices.  I am just sharing inside information on how I go about handling late rent payments.

We are very clear with all our residents that they have until the 5th(grace period) to pay their rent, without penalty.  We also make it very clear to them that on or around the 6th, they will receive a call from us.  Regardless of the list of excuses given by the resident and the outcome of the conversation, we will post a 3-day "pay or quit" notice on or the 10th of the month.  We explain, "it is not personal, it's business".

The 3-day notice is magical.  It makes MOST excuses go away and we USUALLY get paid (and they are on time the next month).  If we don't receive the payment, then we can proceed to file with the county for eviction.  The court will usually set a court date within 10 days.  The resident gets the "official" notice which is a summons to court.  That gets most resident's attention and creates another round of magic and produces another opportunity to get paid.  If that does not work, we know that we are probably going to have an eviction.

EVEN if a resident says "I will pay you on the 11th" we say, "great, but I am still going to have to post the 3-day notice on the 10th, but as long as you pay within the 3 days you are OKAY".  They usually don't have a problem with it. 

Posting lets them know that we are serious and about our business.  If one month they pay on the 11th and nothing happens, then they may pay on the 15th the next month.  Before you know it, they are running a month behind and we (and our owner) are short money.

 The BOTTOM LINE for me is:  Your rent is due!  We (and our owners) are not in the business of lending you money that is owed to us.  Borrow the money from someone else, if you need to, but pay your rent.