What Happens If You Don’t Pay Rent? What You Need To Know

Being in financial trouble can be stressful times. You are always seeking to take care of the necessities, and a roof over your head is one of the most basic of those necessities. But if you just can’t make that next payment? What happens if you don’t pay rent? What can you expect?

It’s not a good position to be in, whether you are the renter or the landlord. Ultimately the goal when renting is that everyone fulfills their obligations each and every month. But in the unfortunate case that a renter cannot, it’s important to know what the next steps are. As a property services company, we want these situations to be handled with care and tact. Let’s go over some of the basics when this situation arises.

Table of Contents

• What Tenants Can Do If They Can’t Pay Rent
• Immediate Consequences of Missing a Rent Payment
• The Eviction Process
• Get Help From Property Managers

What Tenants Can Do If They Can’t Pay Rent

There are a number of things you can do if you foresee having a problem paying your rent. The first thing to do is acknowledge the problem before rent is due. This will give you the most options. Don’t wait until after your rent is due and your landlord is at your door. If you’re asking yourself now what happens if you don’t pay rent, the time is now to figure out your options and understand what will happen in various circumstances.

Before it becomes a larger problem, things you can do are:

1. Check Your Lease – Find out exactly what your lease agreement says about paying rent and late payments. Sometimes leases will allow for a grace period or detail what your landlord’s options for recourse are.
2. Communicate With Your Landlord – One of the most important things you can do to troubleshoot what happens if you don’t pay rent is to communicate with your landlord. It can be a difficult conversation, but some landlords do provide alternative ways of paying rent such as deferment or paying in installments. You may not know for sure what your options are until you have that conversation.
3. Seek Assistance – There are a number of organizations that have programs that may be able to help. Just a couple include the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides rent relief through its Section 8 clause, and the Salvation Army, which provides one-time assistance if you are low on rent.
4. Know Your Renter Protections – There are city, state, and federal guidelines for evictions, dictating what landlords can and cannot do. So researching specifics based on your location is recommended.

Immediate Consequences of Missing a Rent Payment

If you want to know exactly what happens if you don’t pay rent, the answer is that it can vary from one city or state to the other. First, follow the advice above and communicate with your landlord. There are a number of options that landlords may give to assistant tenants such as grace periods and rent payment plans.

If those avenues are exhausted or they are otherwise not being pursued, there are a number of likely options that a landlord will pursue. One would be to first provide a late-rent notice. A late-rent notice is a written document notifying the tenant that the rent is late. It would likely outline late payment fees and what will happen if they do not pay within a given timeframe.

The next likely step would be that the landlord would provide a pay-or-quit notice. This is the first step in the eviction process. While previous steps or communications in the process may vary by what is in the lease agreement and what assistance or leniency a landlord might provide, a pay-or-quite notice is a legal document that is often dictated by state laws and other regulations. The document provides clear expectations on when the tenant needs to pay the outstanding rent and when they will need to vacate the property if they have not done so.

What do you do if you receive a pay-or-quit notice? Look back at some of the previous advice. For example, communicate with your landlord. When you are asking what happens if you don’t pay rent, you may still find that there are alternative payment arrangements available, even once a pay-or-quit notice is delivered. Beyond that, looking for legal advice or even disputing the notice could be on the table in certain circumstances.

The Eviction Process

State laws dictate how evictions must happen, so it is important to investigate the process in your particular location. Ultimately if you are wondering what happens if you don’t pay rent, you will want to research the process from when you first know your scenario (you can’t make the payment) all the way to what happens when there is an eviction on the property. Here we will go over the basic eviction process for Georgia.

Written Notice

According to Georgia law, a landlord must provide a written notice that clearly states the reason for eviction. The previously mentioned pay-or-quit notice acts as this notice.

Complaint Filed in Court

After a notice has been provided and the correct amount of time has passed, the landlord can file a complaint in the justice court where the property is located. The landlord must fill out several documents, including an affidavit.

Tenant is Served

After the complaint has been filed, the court must deliver a summons and affidavit to the tenant. The landlord cannot serve their own tenant. That usually means a court official will deliver it.

Response

Once the papers are served, the tenant has 7 business days to respond to the court. If the tenant is being evicted for failure to pay rent and pays their rent in full within those 7 days, the eviction process will not move forward.

Court Hearing

There is a court hearing. During the trial, the landlord and tenant may share any evidence to support their case.

Eviction

At this point in the process, the eviction can start. If the court has ruled in the landlord’s favor, the tenant has 7 days to move out. It is the tenant’s responsibility to make moving arrangements and remove all their belongings in this timeframe.

Property is Repossessed

This final step is only necessary if the tenant does not move out of the property within 7 days. At that point, an authorized official – usually a police official – can forcibly remove the tenant or lock them out of the property. Landlords cannot evict the tenant themselves.

Get Help From Property Managers

If you are wondering what happens if you don’t pay rent, you’ll want to talk to someone about it. As suggested, start by following up with your landlord or property manager. If you’re unable to come up with a mutually beneficial resolution, you may need to seek legal help.

Evicting tenants is a long and costly process, which is why landlords often try to avoid it when they can. However, despite the cost of removing a tenant, it’s sometimes necessary. At the end of the day, rental property is a business and a lease is a contract that needs to be upheld. If you are a landlord and are juggling this process, consider property management services.

Contact Us Today!

A full-service team like Bay Property Management Group can help you market rentals, screen tenants, collect payments, and more. So, if you need help managing your property services in Atlanta, contact BMG today.