by Carolyn Gibson Cpm

Created on: December 11, 2010

As a homeowner with tenants or a real estate investor, the end of the year holiday season is the most financially stressful time. Tenants will choose to make financial decisions, such as the failure to pay the rent, which could have an adversarial result. Treat the holidays as any other month, collect the rent, and you may be called a Scrooge, but you will be one with a positive cash flow and a mortgage paid up to date.

This article is for all those landlords and managers who are having cash flow problems because their tenants are not paying the rent. This happens more during the end of the year holidays, when travel and gift giving is sometimes more important than any other concern.

Everyone is looking for money at the end of each year. Charities, overdue credit card bills, lay-a-ways, student loans, medical bills – they all want money. As a homeowner with tenants, you should make some calls as well. If the rent is not paid on time, your mortgage will be late, and they will give you a call.

You don’t want to be seen as a Scrooge during the holidays. You think that asking for the rent during this time is ill-timed and inconsiderate. However, you are not being a good landlord if you do not insist that a tenant pay the rent on time and in full. When a tenant doesn’t pay the rent during the holidays, they are using that money for their own Christmas pleasures. Will your bank or mortgage company allow you to do the same?

There is a practical reason why you must insist on your rent payments. It is for the benefit of you and the tenant. If the monthly rent is $1,300 and they fail to pay in December, the tenant will owe $2,600 in January. If you already allowed them get away with only paying half the rent because of the Thanksgiving holiday, they will owe you $3,200 beginning in January. This is a lot of money for any person or family to catch up.

Christmas should not be at anyone’s expense. Having a roof over your head and that of your tenant(s) must be a priority during the season of giving. This will only happen if everyone pays rent and the monthly mortgage on time. Let us not forget that people do get fired before Christmas. Employees get laid off after Christmas.

Do not listen to excuses that tenants give why they cannot pay the rent over the holidays. Take definitive action. File a notice of termination on the tenant, served by a constable, to show that you are serious. Force the tenant to pay on time, or move out. There are plenty of people who will want to rent your apartment.

Manage your real estate investment as a business twelve months of the year. Over time your tenants will expect it, and will see to it that the rent is paid before any other bill; especially during the holidays.

Learn more about this author, Carolyn Gibson Cpm.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.