We understand that, as a landlord, collecting the rent is your number one priority – it’s your income!
At OpenRent our job is to listen to our landlords and build products that make your lives easier. As a result, we have built a Rent Collection service. We collect rent on your behalf, using all of the technology and resources at our disposal to help you always receive your rent on time.
Whilst building our Rent Collection service, we asked our landlords to share their top tips for collecting rent. Our Rent Collection service is only available in Rent Now, our tenancy creation service. We have put together this list of tips to help you with protecting your most valuable asset.
1. Keep a history of rent payments separate from the rest of your bank transactions
“Ugh, did James pay their rent this month? They normally pay on the 13th, but I can’t find it!”
Does this sound familiar?
Keeping track of rental payments can be tricky when you have them coming into the same place as all of your other transactions.
We would recommend that you either keep a separate history of the rental payments or set up a separate bank account for your tenants to pay their rent into.
It also helps maintain your safety and privacy.
Our Rent Collection service equips you with a history of all payments made (and not made) through the system – keeping you fully informed as to the status of your rent. We make sure you’re getting all the important information about your rent, instantly and automatically.
And – if you need all that information – our Rent Collection service has a handy tool for exporting it.
That way your tenants’ rent payments won’t get lost between the weekly shops, Netflix subscription, and everything else!
And, for each tenancy, we create an entirely new bank account for the tenant to pay into, which then pays out to your private bank account, giving you maximum security, privacy, and protection.
2. Send prompt reminders to your tenants
Of course, most of us have absolutely perfect memories, but it can never hurt to receive a friendly reminder when a payment is due.
We have found that sending tenants a reminder a good few days before their rent is due gives them enough time to sort everything out and pay on time.
With Rent Collection, OpenRent can send out reminders to your tenants when their rent is due, and keep chasing them if they are ever late.
Having these conversations yourself can be awkward, and time-consuming – using a professional tool totally removes that burden, so you can build and maintain a stronger relationship with your tenants.
Not only that, but we actively help them set up the payment to the unique bank account we’ve created for them to pay your rent into – which we’ve found massively reduces mistakes further down the line!
3. Change the rental amount if necessary
Our avid readers will know that rental amounts are at an all-time-high at the moment.
You may, therefore, wish to propose a rental increase to your tenants.
Or similarly, you may find that your tenants are struggling to pay their rent at the moment, so may choose to offer them a decrease instead (as a one-off or on a more long-term basis).
You can read our full advice on negotiating and agreeing a rent increase with your tenants here.
If you’re using our Rent Collection service, it’s as simple as a few clicks on our website. Using a professional tool takes away all of the awkwardness around that conversation!
4. Ensure you have access to legal and eviction advice
It is an uncomfortable truth that, sometimes, tenants default on rent payments.
Where this becomes a regular occurrence, or where circumstances change and tenants are no longer able to pay their rent, we would recommend that you have access to legal and eviction advice in order to protect yourself.
These situations can become very messy, so it’s always a good idea to have a professional on hand so that you aren’t left in a vulnerable position.
If you have Rent Collection by OpenRent, our legal partners will be on hand to provide support with rent arrears if needed.
5. Get OpenRent to worry about this for you!
We offer Rent Collection as part of our Rent Now service. With Rent Collection, you can be safe in the knowledge that we’ve got you fully covered on all these fronts.
Alongside all of the above, we can fully guarantee the safety of your and your tenant’s money with client money protection, and save you tonnes of admin work in finding, collecting and chasing rental payments.
There’s no delay, or holding period, either – payments are automatically sent out the same day they’re received.
If your priority as a landlord is to ensure that you receive the rent on time, then our priority is to support you in this.
Start the discussion at community.openrent.co.uk