I have my first tenant that is a month behind in rent, in 2020 I have been fortunate with receiving all rent payments to date... I am grateful for that.

My property manager has expressed their intention to ask the tenant to pay their rent and that we should be grateful to be able to collect even "small" amounts of rent in this covid environment.

I goes against my landlord instincts to "ask" or "try" to get tenants to pay "small" amounts of rent in the "hope" that they will pay in full someday.

My concern is some indefinite number of months of this strategy could pass before you finally could obtain an eviction. What incentive does a tenant have to pay rent? (Assuming they don't care about their credit or rental history) 

Typically you would start the eviction process to get a judgement and evict the tenant, but my PM has stated that if this tenant fills out the CDC form stating they can not pay rent because they have been affected by COVID it will stop the court proceedings. I am assuming the tenant can't just state they have been affected and has to prove it? (This is in AZ and their eviction moratorium currently runs through 1/31/21)

Is the following the generally accepted landlord approach today for tenants shielded from eviction due to covid?

- Ask/work with tenants to pay what they can, when they can. Back rent due builds up indefinitely. Hope they pay in full eventually and if they don't wait for eviction moratorium to lift (someday) to obtain judgement and eviction.