What to Do When Your Tenant Is Late With the Rent

At one time or another, every landlord must deal with a tenant who pays rent late. The best course of action typically depends on the tenant's track record: Is this the tenant's first time paying late? Or is this a tenant who requires regular reminders to pay rent? Here's how to handle the situations where you're willing to give the tenant another chance and when the late payment is the last straw.

What to Do If You're Willing to Accept a One-Time Late Payment

If this is a one-time incident involving a good long-term tenant—someone who just needs a few extra days to pay rent—it's likely in your best interest to grant the tenant's request. Good tenants are hard to find, and going through the process of terminating this tenant's tenancy and trying to find a replacement will cost you a lot more than any expense you incur from getting rent a few days late.

Put your agreement to allow the late payment in writing. Let the tenant know that you appreciate their history of paying on time. If your lease or rental agreement allows you to collect a late rent fee, note in your letter that you expect the fee to be included with the rent. You can also give the tenant a gentle reminder that you rely on timely rent payments to make your own mortgage payments (or run your business smoothly, for example), and that you're able to extend the due date only one time.

Keep records of the tenant's request and your response. Then, if the tenant fails to pay rent on time in the future, you have proof that rent hasn't been paid on time more than once.

Ending a Tenancy Because of Nonpayment of Rent

If you decide that you're not willing to give a tenant an extension to pay rent or let a late rent payment slide, you can end the tenancy because of the nonpayment of rent. Before you can file an eviction lawsuit for nonpayment of rent, though, you must provide the tenant with a notice of termination.

States have specific rules and procedures on terminating and evicting a tenant for nonpayment of rent. In most states, when a tenant is late with rent, landlords can send a termination notice right away. Some states, though, require landlords to give the tenant a few days' grace period—in other words, the landlord must wait until the rent is, for example, two or three days late before sending the termination notice.

Types of Termination Notices

Whether you have to give a tenant the chance to pay rent that's late before ending the tenancy depends on state law.

Pay Rent or Quit Notices

If your state requires you to give the tenant a chance to pay late rent before you can end their tenancy, you'll need to provide the tenant with a pay rent or quit notice. These notices tell the tenant that their rent is late, and that if they don't pay the money owed by the deadline in the notice or quit (move out), the tenancy will end. If the tenant doesn't pay rent or move out by the deadline, you can file an eviction lawsuit.

Most states allow landlords to send the notice the first day the rent is late; since most leases require rent be paid by the first of the month, this is usually the second of the month (although a few states allow extra time if the first falls on a weekend or holiday). But a handful of states give tenants a grace period and don't allow landlords to send a pay rent or quit notice until the tenant is a certain number of days late.

Unconditional Quit Notices

Some states don't require landlords to give the tenant a chance to pay rent. Instead, the landlord can simply give the tenant a notice that gives them a deadline by which they need to move out. If the tenant doesn't move out, the landlord can file an eviction lawsuit.

And, in some states where landlords must give a pay rent or quit notice for a first offense, landlords aren't required to give the tenant a second chance a second time. In other words, if the tenant is late with rent a second time within a specified timeframe, the landlord can end the tenancy right away.

For either type of notice, landlords should follow the procedural steps in their state laws carefully; failure to do so might result in a court refusing to evict the tenant. When this happens, the landlord must start the whole process all over again.

How to Prevent Late Rent Payments

For most landlords, the best way to ensure tenants pay rent on time is to carefully screen rental applications so you're picking the best possible tenants.

Beyond that, landlords should consistently stress to tenants that rent must be paid on the due date (typically the first of the month), and that late payments might result in termination of the tenancy. Your lease or rental agreement is the best place to spell out the rules for when, where, and how tenants should pay the rent, along with the consequences for failure to pay rent on time, including late rent fees and termination of the tenancy.

Additional Resources

To find your state laws on how to terminate a tenancy when a tenant is late with rent, check out Nolo's article State Laws on Termination for Nonpayment of Rent. Nolo's Evicting a Tenant section also contains detailed information about the eviction process.

For a very thorough resource on the entire landlording process from tenant screening to eviction procedures, see Nolo's Every Landlord's Legal Guide.