What to Say to Your R2R HMO Landlords When You're Unable to Guarantee the Rent

What to say if you just can't pay!

Coronavirus is causing havoc and today I talk about what to say to your landlords when you cannot guarantee the rent.

✅ CLICK HERE to watch the video ✅

What to Say to Your R2R HMO Landlords When You're Unable to Guarantee the Rent – Coronavirus#2

This is the second in a short series of videos all about Coronavirus and how you can get your Rent to Rent business through the Coronavirus confusion in one piece, and also help you still deliver for your landlords and for your tenants while you do it.

In this blog and video, I want to talk about that difficult conversation that nobody wants to have with their landlord…

Explaining to a landlord you may not be able to guarantee the rent

This was a painful one for me because we've had some of our landlords for almost four years, and in that time, we have never missed a rent payment to any of them.

I am proud of this fact. I feel good that our landlords are getting the best that they possibly can from anyone, and that they would be very hard pressed to beat the service that we give them.

When coronavirus came along with ‘lockdown’ when the government instructed bars, cafés, restaurants, gyms, some shops and many other businesses to close their doors, lots of people were lost their jobs.

This meant a lot of our tenants wouldn’t be able to pay their rent. And also that if tenants moved out we wouldn’t be able to replace them.

This means that while lockdown is in force that we, like other business owners, cannot operate our business.

And it is this fact, that leaves us in the situation where we may not be able to guarantee rent during this period.

What do you do and what do you say when you're in a guaranteed rent contract with a landlord and you can’t replace leaving tenants because of a global pandemic?

We accepted that this is not something that we can manage, this is something that even the government is struggling to manage, so a small company like ours can't expect to take all this on when something like this happens.

We accept, like we’ve all had to, that we simply cannot operate our business normally.

Somebody in a Facebook group said, "Well doesn't guaranteed rent mean guaranteed rent?"

Well, yes it does under normal circumstances but this is a circumstance in which we can't operate our business in our normal way. We can't replace people who move out. And more people are moving out.

They’re moving home with their parents in many cases. Why we’ve been good at our business and able to offer landlords good guaranteed rent is because we fill room efficiently, without a gap. Now we can’t do that.

I think the communication that you have with your landlords is very important.

It is important to get the message right, and we feel we hit the right notes with the letter we sent to our landlords from the replies we’ve received back from them.

What was in our letter?

We acknowledged that landlords would be concerned
We reminded them that we have never missed or been late for a rent payment and it's our aim to be able to maintain that.
We signposted that there are threats to our business operation that are outside of our control and that we won't be able to operate our business in the normal way.
We pledged to stay in touch and let them know in advance of any issues and changes.

The email was received well because we had a few replies

You have to remember that over the years you have built up equity with your landlords when you have provided good service, you’ve communicated with them, you've never missed a rent payment and you’ve diligently managed your properties.

And that means that when challenging times arise it's much easier to communicate with your landlords and they understand that these are unprecedented times and all sorts of unusual things are happening that nobody would have predicted.

And they know that we are working hard to minimise any impact on our landlords. My aim is for all our landlords to think, I’m so glad I was with HMO Heaven.

If you have a rent to rent business and you're struggling with what to say to landlords or tenants, then you can click the link below to book a call with me. ✅CLICK HERE to book a call with Stephanie✅

You can also join us in our Rent 2 Rent success secrets Facebook group. We will be going live every week for the next few weeks to talk about the impact of coronavirus and you can bring any questions that you have to us there.

Stay safe and see you again soon.

Stephanie & Nicky

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Questions?
Please comment below and we’ll reply!

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