Ole Snidely is one of my all-time heroes, he had a simple motto.... But You Must Pay The Rent!

But you must pay the rent!

I am amazed at the number of times I have encountered landlords and even property managers who accept partial rent or even no rent. Tenants are like children they will try to get away with anything you let them get away with.

I remember one tenant who was responsible for $1 a month, Section-8 paid the rest. It never failed, come the fifth of the month I was knocking on her door looking for my $1.

Often we would take over the management of a property and find that the tenants had been allowed to pay whatever the felt like paying. Our system of collection usually comes as quite a surprise to those tenants.

I don't care if it is $1 or $1,000, my job is to collect the damn rent!

Don't get me wrong, I have a heart. It is not uncommon for us to work with a tenant to get "caught up" but it requires effort on their part. Having been a property manager for nearly 25 years, I'm pretty sure there are few excuses I haven't heard.

So how do we collect rent so effectively? 

The single most important thing you can do is invoice each tenant monthly for the amount they owe!

We send a rent account statement to each tenant every month with a self addressed return envelope. No other system has more effect than a billing system! Just like receiving your electric bill, your phone bill or your credit card bill. They can't say they simply forgot, they have a statement and a return envelope for payment.

I first started this system back in the early 90's while managing apartment complexes. I would go out on the first and place notes on every door in the complex.  Now we send out the notices by mail on or around the 25th of the month. The response is tremendous! We actually collect most of our rent on or before the first of the month.

Non payment is met with phone calls, demand letters and tenacity. It takes someone who will not back down, not take no for an answer and demand rent. 

For years that was me, but we have an employees on our staff who may be a bit more tactful than I am. While if the situation requires a personal visit, that still falls to me, the frequency of that is almost Zero!

Late fees, penalties and full payment are not options, pay your rent or get out, I'm not here to run a charity. If you have circumstances that prevented you from paying your rent, we will negotiate a payment plan. We will even give you a list of charitable organizations that might assist you in getting your rent caught up.

I do not own any investment property, I work for the owners of each property we manage. The mortgage companies & insurance companies don't take no for an answer. So our job is to collect the rent so the owner can pay them.

That tenant who paid $1 a month..... The third time I went to her house I told her to dig in the couch and find me $5.00 in change because I was not driving there every damn month for $1.00.

She managed to come up with the $5.00!

 Kansas City Property Management

Kansas City Investment Property