First unpaid rent: what to do?

This is a situation that individual landlords are not prepared for: the first unpaid rent. While the rents were paid regularly, here we are on the 12th of the month and the rent is still unpaid. We are going to see together the good reflexes to have, whether it is a commercial lease or a residential lease (furnished or not).

First thing to do: contact the tenant 

Indeed, whatever the cause of the delay, an immediate dialogue is necessary. This will show your tenant that you are following your accounts, that you are paying attention to the regularity of the payment of the rents.
If you have followed our advice to Choose Your Tenant Well, you know that you have a serious tenant. Therefore, the first thing to do is to make sure that it is not just a postal or banking malfunction.
We advise you to visit your tenant if you are not very far away, or to call him/her, all courteously to surprise you for not having received the payment.

During this interview, check with him if he prefers to set up an automatic transfer and if he would like to postpone the payment of the rent by a few days: if it is paid around the 5th of the month, it is easier for him to pay you the rent on the 10th. And it is better to pay the rent every 10 days than to pay the rent on the 1st of the month but systematically pay it late.

In most cases, this amicable approach makes it possible to solve the problem of unpaid bills. However, there are cases where the unpaid amounts remain unpaid.

What if the rent remains unpaid? 

If at the beginning of the following month the previous rent has still not been paid, proceedings should be initiated without delay. But before that, we advise you to contact the tenant once again to see what problems he or she is experiencing. Indeed, it is possible that the tenant may encounter temporary difficulties (purchase of a vehicle not foreseen, punctual decrease of activity...), but also more serious difficulties such as the loss of employment, a divorce (on this subject, we advise you this article concerning the fate of the lease in the event of rupture). In all cases, always show courtesy but firmness.
For example, if your tenant reports temporary problems, consider with him a moratorium on late rent (payment in three instalments for example) but make it clear that you will call in a bailiff if the terms of the agreement are not respected to the day.
Another example, if your tenant obviously cannot afford to stay in the accommodation, try to negotiate a departure date but tell him/her that you will nevertheless initiate proceedings through a bailiff on the following day as a guarantee.
In any case, also send a letter (the written word remains, the spoken word flies away). For example, you can send this letter, which can be downloaded for free.

Finally, if you cannot reach an agreement, contact a bailiff.

You can contact a bailiff close to the rented property, but more and more studies (as is the case, for example, of the Dominus Litis network of which our study is a part) offer a service throughout France by managing your file jointly with a bailiff close to the tenant's home.

The bailiff will come and hand-deliver to your tenant a summons to pay concerning the resolutory clause. This act (necessary for the continuation of the procedure) has a cost, part of which is attached to the amount of the unpaid rent (hence the interest also to have it delivered quickly): count for an unpaid rent of 800 euro, less than a hundred euro.
This act gives a period of time (one month, two months depending on the case) to regularize the situation, failing which the lease is resolved, i.e. the tenant is no longer legally your tenant under the lease and his eviction may be pronounced.

After this period, you can start eviction proceedings, and we can provide you with advice, including drafting the eviction summons. We will discuss this in a future article.

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