When I first read this, I was thinking 'well, you can't blame her for trying' with her give me some money to stop an eviction plea.
Then I thought about it and read the story of this single mother's plight. That's when the human within me overtook the businessman exterior. Don't get me wrong now, that does not mean we should be too soft on tenants that don't pay their rent, as it could end up with us having the house repossessed and what good would that do?
I worked in financial services for most of my career and as part of my rounds often got involved in the debt-collection side of the business. I was taught the difference between 'can't pay' and 'won't pay'.
The latter has only one outcome...formal legal action resulting in a court order and in the case of housing, an eviction too. The former, ‘can't pay’ could also lead to this outcome, especially if debtors fail to communicate, break promises, put their priorities in the wrong place, or just let things get totally out of control. However, genuine hardship cases, where there is some hope of things restored to normality might mean a more lenient, co-operative approach.
Take this case for example. It is clear that this woman is at least trying; she works and has an eBay business selling her art, as well as raising her daughter. She had a difficult situation to escape from and fell on hard times due to a reduction in her working hours, slow art trading activity and some unexpected medical bills. I can only imagine that she was communicating with her landlord and trying to work something out but that is an assumption. I also recognise and appreciate my fellow landlord's plight here, he needs to be paid of course.
What I cannot condone is the apparent harassment of the tenant by turning up on the doorstep and calling perhaps daily or even more frequently than that. This is before mentioning the harassment of the daughter, if she is a minor and not party to the lease. Not getting paid is a hazard of our occupation but we need to act reasonably and within the law in how we deal with trying to resolve the situation.
I imagine that if she was my tenant and approached me in the right way that I would have hoped that we could work something out together. It is not a blank chequebook business that we operate and so there are limits but you work with me, communicate, stick to your promises and don't go blowing money due for rent on fags and booze instead and maybe we can work together to clear the arrears and get back on track.
Of course, this could all be one giant scam designed to extract money from sympathetic fools all over the world as well, so I won't necessarily go around looking for the next rent arrears case to support...I have one much closer to home to deal with now anyway! In this case, I think the offer to give some of her art away for free showed me the commitment this lady had to try and resolve her problems and you can't ask for too much more than that.
Some landlords do have a heart, although it can only bleed for so long before the bleeding has to stop. Nevertheless, for now, Allegra Ashley, I applaud you and hope that your tomorrow is better than your yesterday.
Source & credits: determinedsinglemom
GIANT SCAM…. I just investigated this “single mom” on behalf of a client and she’s used this plea over the last 5 months on several websites and facebook pages for non-profit denominations. Many times fulfilling the Go Fund Me campaign and then starting a new one.
Yes, as my post mentioned, it could be a scam…sounds like it might well be based on your investigation. However, the point of my post was not to promote her fund-raising attempts but instead to highlight some good and practice in landlord / tenant matters when it comes to dealing with rent collection, late payments and arrears.