UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi,

We have a tenant (single parent with two kids) who has been in for just over two years, and is now on a periodic tenancy (following a 12 month AST). We've never had any issues with them in the past - house tidy, always paid, rarely contacted us with issues (the few times they did, the issues were quickly addressed).

With this in mind, we'd stupidly become complacent checking rent and then this week they sent a text with issues about the house. This set alarm bells ringing as the tone was different to our usual sporadic correspondence. I have now just discovered that they are in arrears (didn't pay Sept or November rent).

It's obviously been a tough year for everyone, so we are willing to open a dialogue with the tenant, work out a payment plan and write off some off the debt. However, I'm concerned that they're setting groundwork for trying to justify not paying. I'm now just asking advice on how to approach this, particularly as we hadn't seen the arrears immediately.

Thanks in advance!

Dialogue is key. Go round for a face to face (socially distanced) conversation if possible.

There is a good chance with employment issues and Christmas that money is an issue, but do not presume they will be open and honest and forthcoming about this topic of conversation. Much easier for a tenant to bury their head in the sand and hope it goes away.