How do your tenants pay you?

Hi, just wondering for those who self manage, how do your tenants pay rent?

Am I able to add in my next lease that I would like them to pay via auto payments, they do weekly bank transfers manually, which is not very consistent. Sometimes it might be say over a period of 6 rents, 3 might be spaced 10 days apart, which equals a week's rent, but hard to identify to them because it wasn't a specific week. I have made a Google sheets rent tracker that I fill out every 3 months from my statements, which they can view online at anytime. Are there any others ideas I can use for more consistent payments?

 

Your lease should specify how much and when the rent is paid ...

 

I don't think you can specify exactly how your tenants are paying via bank transfer, but the onus should be on them not to fall into arrears. If they are inconsistant and falling into arrears it doesn't look good on their ledger for future rentals and that should be incentive for them to set up an auto payment if they have the funds (and something you can encourage them to do).

 

That sounds time consuming, how much time would you say you spend a week dabbling with the spreadsheet and trying to explain to the tenant their behind and trying to get them to understand the rent payment record you've kept?

 

If it's in Queensland, no- you cannot enforce the frequency of payments, as long as they are not in arrears.

Filling your ledger out every three months sounds like a great way for you to discover way too late that your tenants are in arrears. You wont be able to claim rent loss on insurance in that sort of situation. You really need to be doing it weekly.