How to get the tenant to pay the rent on time in Poland

If you want your tenant to pay the rent on time without a delay, you must first of all set the rules. The main rule is a deadline that the rent must be paid until certain day of a month, for example the 10^th day of each month. The date should be clearly set in the rental agreement. You should also have in the contract the possibility of applying a penalty for late payment, for example a penalty interest rate and the possibility of terminating the contract after a fixed period of failure to pay rent (one or two months).  The law in Poland states that you can send an indication of termination of the rental agreement only after 3 unpaid months and terminate the contract with one month termination notice after 4 unpaid months but you can put a different notice period in the contract. Most of the tenants will follow the rules.

The second main factor while keeping the rent payments on time is supervising the rent payments on a regular basis and sending feedback to the tenant as soon as the due date for rent payment has passed. The tenant needs to know that the delay will always be noticed and enforced.

To ensure your tenant will pay on time you must also carefully choose the tenant in the first place. It is reasonable to check the tenant’s name on social media and search for any potential debts they may have. Also to ask about the employment status and get references from their previous landlords. When renting to students, sign the contract in their parent’s names or get a guarantor.

If the tenant is late with rent, communicate with them. There must be a reason why they didn’t pay and as soon as you know the reason, the sooner you can act appropriately.  There is no sense in keeping a tenant who lost their job and can’t pay, so you may decide to terminate the contract. Temporary financial problems may be overcome by paying off arrears in rent by the tenant at a later stage by way of monthly instalments.

At Sim Property we always carefully choose the tenant, set the rules and keep monitoring the rent payments, as well as communicate with the tenant on a regular basis to resolve any issues in timely manner to ensure positive cash flow and satisfaction of our clients investments.