Tis The Best Of Times
Christmas, a time of family.
A time of celebration.
A time of presents.
A time of excitement for families, both young and old.
It’s also a time where landlords can come second.
Tis The Worst of Times
This post will be live December 6th, six days after rent is normally due. If your tenants are late with rent right now, you have some tough times ahead of you. If your tenants are behind a month already, it just gets worse.
The reason I can relate to this so well is my very first eviction took place in December of 2004. It’s when I first learned landlords can come second to Christmas. They were already a month and a half behind and apparently struggling as they tried to catch up, or so I thought.
My generosity in letting them fall behind was a losing situation and when they didn’t have December’s rent, I waited a few days and then gave them an eviction notice to be out on the 22nd of December, or to pay me in full and they could stay until the end of the month.
We felt horrible. We were evicting people just before Christmas. People who we felt were struggling to get by.
The problem was, so were we!
I was still working full time in order to help our lives move forward. We’d been involved in Real Estate for 18 months at this point and had six rental properties (three of which were losing money, four if you count this one), and money was tight for us.
We knew we had to make sacrifices now if we wanted to get anywhere with our lives and if that involved having a small Christmas for ourselves, that’s how it had to be. As they say, if it was easy, everyone would do it and evicting people before Christmas isn’t easy.
To Make a Short Story Long
These tenants actually lived upstairs in this half duplex and our handyman was living downstairs. On the night of the 21st, he called us to tell us when he got home all the lights were on upstairs and the patio door, the bedroom windows and the front door were wide open and the tenants and their possessions were gone. Except for their garbage of course, and the damages.
No serious damage, just all the walls needed to be repainted, the handles and the vents had been painted with nail polish (most likely by their kids) and it was basically in a situation of neglect or lack of cleaning for many months.
Fortunately Ray the handyman had come home to find it, as we weren’t going to come by until the next day. Ray closed all the windows, the patio door and locked up the front door for us and we moved forward a little disappointed in life and in people.
The next day after work we stopped by to survey what needed to be done. Here it was December 22nd, I had five days off work, theoretically to spend with my family and discovered that the majority of it would be spent cleaning and painting my property so I could have it ready for January 1st. the perfect way to set the mood for the holidays.
The holidays became even more interesting the next day when the former tenant called to say we had all their Christmas presents for their kids. After trying to find out what she meant, she told us they forgot all the presents in the closet and since we changed the locks after they moved out they couldn’t get back in to get them.
Back to the house the next day and lo and behold, no presents.
Which leads me down another garden path, but to try and shorten this up, we talked to Ray the handyman and when asked about it he fessed up that he moved them downstairs to keep them safe…
So wanting to do the right thing, we told the tenant we would drop the presents off that night. We’d already kicked them out before Christmas, they were apparently down on their luck, so it had to be done.
So when we finally grabbed the presents to take to them from Ray, we took a closer look. These poor downtrodden tenants who were scraping by probably had over $1,000 worth of presents for the kids.
There was a Leap Pad, which my oldest daughter wanted for Christmas, but we couldn’t justify purchasing because things were so tight. There were other electronic toys, stuffed animals, clothes, all types of items that were far and beyond what we could justify spending on our own kids.
Yet these people could do it and without a thought about it, not pay me my rent causing me financial hardship.
So needless to say, Christmas has left me a bit jaded at times. And the lesson to be learned is while Christmas is a time to be forgiving, it’s also a time where people will take advantage of kind heartedness. We could have let them stay for another month, in the spirit of Christmas, but the only thing it would have changed is how much more money we lost by being too forgiving.
So my lesson for you, if you haven’t been paid for December rent by the time you read this, don’t get too caught up in the Christmas spirit of giving, unless you can afford to lose the money and you don’t mind coming in second.
The Morning After Update
So I normally write these articles a day or two before I publish them which allows me time to think about what I wrote and how it will help others. When I posted it last night, I skipped that step and as I thought about it over night I believe it came across as perhaps a bit too harsh.
Now there is no discounting that these former tenants took advantage of me. I was pretty new and I was pretty hopeful people were good. Now almost ten years later I’m not so new, not quite so optimistic and even jaded at times. And occasionally my inner grinch comes out, like when I wrote this.
The important part to realize is not all tenants are created equal and when you have nothing to go on, history is important. History of the tenant that is.
If they have a history of paying late, your leniency should be short. If they have a great history and suddenly are having hiccups during the holidays due to unforeseen problems, then on a case by case basis, there may be room for slack and understanding.
Over the years I’ve received cards and gifts from tenants and they are definitely not all bad, in fact the majority of them are great, but we often forget the good and focus on the bad. So if you have good tenants, be good to them and they will reward you in kind.
There that’s my slightly revised message for you, hope it helps.
Thank you for this article Bill. Your stories have taught me that it is better to a Grinch ASAP rather than waiting and hoping that your tenants will be reasonable and come through (like they promised).
It is hard to change our behavior. I continually want to give people a second chance and, if they are the wrong tenants, they will take advantage of my generosity.
Your story illustrates that it is not a lack of finances that usually results in non-payment of rent, it is bad judgment. The money is there, it is just not allocated properly.
My husband told me he would have never considered not paying his rent. But he is the kind of tenant you want – ethical and honest.
Merry Christmas to all and I hope you have December’s rent (cause they won’t have more money in January!)
Thanks Linda,
It really is a fine line between Santa and Scrooge this time of year. As people we all want to try and help, but we also have to balance that with the danger of others not being quite as ethical or worse yet, simply being caught in a bad position.
I’ve seen it in the past with tenants who are simply desperate. They’ve made poor decisions and it led to unfortunate situations, like evictions, and they cling tooth and nail to those poor decisions.
Bottom line, people have to do what makes them comfortable as long as it doesn’t cost them to become desperate themselves.If you’re in a position where you can afford to lose a couple month’s rent if you’re wrong, but feel it’s worth the risk, then I applaud you. You are a good helped landlord.
If you realize two months lost income puts your finances in jeopardy, I also applaud you for making a tough decision when you need to.
Every situation is different.
Regards,
Bill