Advice for landlords whose tenants are not paying rent

Note - the Landlord Law Blog has now moved to www.landlordlawblog.co.uk.

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A report on the BBC web-site today states that more tenants are in arrears of rent now than since the late 1980's. Which is not surprising given the almost daily announcements of redundancies.

Here is a bit of advice for landlords:

• Keep on top of things and contact tenants as soon as they fall into arrears
  
• Be sympathetic to tenants who respond to you, and consider reducing the rent if they are geninely in financial difficulties through no fault of their own
  
• If tenants are on housing benefit/Local Housing Allowance, tell the benefit office - they should make payment direct to you if the arrears reach 8 weeks
  
• However if tenants have not responded when the arrears reach 2 months worth, serve a section 8 notice and consider issuing proceedings for possession. Remember possession proceedings can take months.

For more information see my article 'Dealing with rent arrears - some different approaches' which you can download and read free of charge in this section of my LandlordLaw web-site.

Further guidance and help is available in my Rent Arrears Action Plan.