BiggerPockets

Hello,

I need some advice. I have a tenant who pays rent with postal money orders by mail to our PO box. They have been prompt and reliable and are good tenants. This months rent has not arrived even though it was mailed more than a week ago. At this point, it seems unlikely it will show up.

They have the receipts for the money orders. You cannot 'stop payment' on money orders as with checks but you can cancel them. However, it takes about 60 days for the money to be returned.

What would be the best way to handle this?

Thank you

You're probably going to hear various opinions about this, although,some of them may be contradicting, most are the right answers despite the contradictions. Each landlord with his /her own experience. Assuming that this is the first time it happened and your tenant is a good one. The first thing to do, is remediate the problem and find a better way for rent delivery so it won't happen again. Second since it wasn't the landlord fault (Tenant had the choice to use certified letter) the tenant needs to pay again. Should the payment is delivered, the landlord should return the M.O. to the tenant. In any case, the tenant will have to wait that 60 days for the reimbursement.

They will have to come up with another rent payment. "lost in the mail" is not the landlord's problem.

Let me point out to you a very favorite tenant trick. It is called, "The check is in the mail". It's a very common trick right around the holiday season.

Even good tenants might try this after they decide to move out. The plan is to stall you off for the last month before they skip out, so that they don't have to pay the last month's rent. Expect to find a lot of damage when they do this, because they already know they won't get their deposit back.

I like rent paid in personal checks, because if the rent gets lost in the mail, the tenant just has to stop payment and write me another check.

If the rent goes to a post office box, all the tenant has to do is to mail the rent at the post office and it doesn't have any opportunity to go astray. They are already out and about in order to purchase the MO.

Even if they show you the receipt for the money order, it means nothing. All it means is they purchased one and sent it to someone. It doesn't mean they sent it to you.