When Tenants Aren’t Paying
It seemed like just a couple of weeks ago you tenant was having problems paying, but they promised they would make it up, or you thought it was a momentary hurdle so you let it slide while they got back on their feet. It can’t hurt to give them a chance?
It seems to be a very slow and methodical process. First, it’s one month behind and then maybe they give you a partial payment to appease you, yet never completely catch up. Then next month again, perhaps another partial payment, but never totally catching up the arrears leaving you stuck covering the payments. Each time you are hoping they can catch up and each month they fall further behind you feel you have to let them catch up or you will be out $2,000, $3,000 or even more in lost rent.
So you wait, and suddenly its several months later, they owe you five thousand dollars or more in back rent and you don’t know what to do. You tried to do the right thing, you thought the tenant would recover, and now you are stuck in what I call, the eviction spiral.
If it’s happened to you, you are not alone. It’s happened to me, I’ve heard it from dozens of other landlords and I am sure I will continue to hear it from dozens more. The important part now is you need to take action.
In the majority of instances, you will never get your money back, so you must focus on the priority of regaining control of your property. If you are lucky enough to get some of it or all of it, congratulations, consider it a lucky bonus and a stressful yet cheap lesson in landlording.
Avoiding The Eviction Spiral
The easiest course of action, in my opinion, is by filing at the Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service or RTDRS for short. It costs $75, they can usually hear your case in five to fourteen days and it’s very informal. You can also go through the courts, it costs a little more at $100 to file, they typically have a much longer waiting time (meaning you are going nowhere fast with your tenant) and it is very formal.
If you are still under the impression your tenant may recover, the hearing officers at the RTDRS (and the judges at the courthouse) can provide you with a Stay or Cinderella order for your tenants. This order will delay the eviction as long as they make scheduled payments to catch up outstanding rent. Realistically, this is the preferred method to use as soon as the tenant starts falling behind, if you believe they will recover that is.
If you are a landlord and you haven’t signed up to get the free walk through I have that explains the steps involved with the RTDRS, be sure to do that now. The link is on the top right side of every page and it will update you on what you need to know if you are going through this process.
Do yourself a favour, don’t get caught in the eviction spiral and make sure you stick to systems to manage your property. Systems take emotions out of the process and make your life easier!
Hi Bill,
Thank you so much for all the info you’re sharing!
My tenant in the basement suite of my house has been having a hard time with keeping employment and just informed me (via email) that she will be paying June’s rent late and she will just be paying it as she can throughout the month and cannot commit to a schedule. I told her I will forgive it this one time as long as she pays in full by the end of the month and future months are on time (this will be her first time being late). She replied to me stating that this will be an ongoing situation and I’m “just going to have to deal with it”
I have no intention of allowing this to continue and to be honest I want her gone (she is intrusive and often gets fall down drunk in my yard and is very unpleasant to deal with, unfortunately not reasons for eviction) so I wanted your opinion on my plan and ask a couple questions.
I am going to tell her that I need July’s rent on time and if she doesn’t feel she can meet her obligations I will accept thirty days notice and allow her to terminate her lease early.
Since I don’t expect that she will give up without a fight and I don’t expect she will pay on time I want to tell her on July 2nd that if she doesn’t pay immediately I will start eviction proceedings.
1) Is this too soon or will the RTDRS want there to be more of a history first? I do have it in an email that she has stated the situation will not improve in the immediate future and honestly I can’t afford to deal either this very long, especially since I doubt her ability to even pay the full amount.
2) Would you recommend doing an eviction notice? I want this nipped in the bud ASAP so I don’t really want to but if it will help my case I will.
3) Is there any chance my situation is actually governed by the innkeepers act? It is a basement suite that has no real kitchen, no separate heating or utilities (we even share cable and internet), we have a shared laundry room that you can access either suite from (I live on the main floor), my area is locked off, hers is not, she does have an additional outside door that does lock. We have a fairly standard basic lease agreement that does not mention the innkeepers act but I have mentioned to her on more than one occasion that we are roommates in the eyes of the law (I was hoping to plant the seed in case this happened even though I knew it might not be accurate).
Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give me!!! I’ll definitely be buying your kit if this gets that bad.
Hi Lynne,
I’d give her an eviction notice June 2nd and follow up with a letter that basically states that due to a lease being in place she is obligated to pay on time. Also recap what she has told you in the letter so everything is out on the table and possibly include that if that won’t work it is in the best interests of both parties if she moves on and if rent continues to be paid late you’ll be forced to evict her.
If she’s already a bit of a problem, by starting early it can accelerate the situation by doing this and by July 2/3rdish you could proceed with enough evidence to the RTDRS.
You fall outside of the Innkeeper’s Act because you have your own locked off area upstairs. If she shared your upstairs kitchen and living room it would be different.
Hope that helps,
Bill
P.S. the secret to a successful eviction is being prepared, so start getting ready now.
Thank you so much for your prompt and thorough reply, the help you are giving here is amazing!
Hi Bill,
It’s become worse. As expected she has not taken me up on my offer to end the lease early and there have been a series of drunk emails getting angry at me, followed by sober ones apologizing. The most recent email crosses a line though. In it she states that if I do not lower my rent by 50% she will be contacting the company I work for and letting them know I have been getting drunk while working from home and drunk driving (neither of which have any basis in truth) and ended it stating “Don’t back me into a corner.”
I realize that this doesn’t count as a threat for a 24 hour notice as it does not imply physical violence. Can I put two reasons on my 14 day eviction notice though? One for failure to pay rent and one for harassment/interfering with my reasonable quiet enjoyment? I also have further back up (not sure which category it falls under), she is responsible for lawn care and the city grass we are responsible for is about a foot and a half long and the front lawn has multiple weeds and is also way longer than is acceptable. I have documented this with time stamped photos and asked her to take care of it, it is still not done.
I want to ensure that this eviction goes through as soon as possible as I no longer feel safe in my own home and it is impacting my career as I am having to warn my place of work about her behaviour.
Thanks in advance again!
PS – I am definitely buying your kit!!!!
Hey Lynne,
That is all evidence showing she needs to not only leave, but leave quickly, especially the threats about contacting your employer. As a side note, I’d definitely recommend advising your employer you have a tenant problem and that they have threatened to contact your work in order to try and stay.
It doesn’t count as 24 hour eviction material, but it does add to the pile and helps make the eviction easier. along with the lawn issues which are definitely a breach it seems simpler and simpler for you to get this done. Just make sure you include EVERY breach in the reason for eviction and I go through why this is needed in the guide.
Bill
My tenants have a one year lease for our house (Sept 1, 2014 to Sept 1, 2015). 2014 was okay for rent payment, but he was injured in a car accident before Christmas and has now missed 3 months rental, for Jan, Feb & Mar. I have received zero payments, what do I do now?
Hello Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe,
Unless you have unlimited resources you need to take some kind of action. While bad things happen to good people, you can’t be expected to cover the payments for your tenant.
Step one would be to contact the tenant and explain you need a payment for April and some sort of plan going forward. If something acceptable can’t be reached or they can’t pay you’ll have to move forward with an eviction and you’ll want to do it quickly. you’re already on the hook for three months, this will make four and if you delay it could end up being five.
If they can make a payment for April, but aren’t sure how to set up a payment plan, you may also want to consider going through the RTDRS or the courts to set up an eviction that includes a payment plan. I discuss this in my eviction guide.
This would put them on a path to making payments or if payments are missed to accelerate the eviction.
You may need to stress to the tenant that they need to update you ASAP or you will have to take some sort of action.
Hope that gives you some direction,
Bill
You must be a psychologist, Bill! Guess what? I did get caught up in that spiral. The hole got bigger and bigger. The biggest mistake I made was not throwing the book at them a day after the rent was due. I tried to be considerate and, in return, got screwed! Talk about gratitude! My motto now is save sympathy for another day. Be ruthless! Because some of these lowlifes deserve nothing less!
RTDRS saved me a TON of money. In fact, though I took the RTDRS judgement to file at Court, it did not cost me another cent above the $75 I paid. Fabulous service!