Tenant asked to change rent payment date?

Keep it simple. Accept that he will be effectively 3 days late on the rent every month and that's it. The notice period date remains the 21st. This way you won't need to worry about any pro rata payments, over payments, repayments and all the hassles that brings.

Reply to the comment left by The Forever Tenant at 04/05/2020 - 11:01
Agree, plus a bit of goodwill it should bring and at no cost.

Rent is more likely to be paid if it is paid in a way that suits the tenant, so paying it a few dates late after their payday is a sensible option I am happy to accept without penalty or complaint. I just give them x days grace and leave the original AST exactly as is but move my rent reminders x days forward. I remind these tenants that they are paying x days in arrears and the very last month's rent will finish on the same day as original AST day not the new pay day.

Reply to the comment left by The Forever Tenant at 04/05/2020 - 11:01I agree. Keep it simple and just accept the payment 3 days late.

Reply to the comment left by Steve Masters at 04/05/2020 - 11:07
I agree that it is better to help the tenant where possible. However, my worst ever tenants were from Nigeria. They rarely paid on time and in full. Typically they would pay some rent a week late and it wouldn't be the full amount. When they left they had put carpet burns on four carpets. It was exactly the same mark from a domestic iron on four carpets - very hard to understand. You can understand somebody making a mistake once...but the same mistake four times?

In the end I got rid of them and took the payment for the carpets out of what was left from the deposit. That's the problem, if your tenants are late paying they are in effect taking your deposit and you don't want your acceptance of a late payment to be a slippery slope.

So I think I would do what the others have suggested but I think I would ask for written proof that that was the tenant's regular pay day and having seen the proof I would accept no other reasons for late payment. What do you do if the tenants' employer decides to pay late for example?

If you accept 1 week of late payment you may have kissed goodbye to 20% of your deposit.

I would agree to change the pay date but if you have Rent Protect cover or ever want to take this out in future, the tenant will show as constantly paying the rent late & may (but I stress may) jeopardize this type of cover & therefore I suggest you agree with the tenant that he/she pay the 3 days in addition to their monthly rent e.g. if rent is £1000 pm due on 21st, move to 24th plus 3 days rent = £1098.63 then £1K pm thereafter on 24th (or if £98.63 is too much for the tenant in one go, then agree £32.88 extra pm for 3 months)

Agree with comments above where the "pay day" is only a few days different to rent due date. Where significantly different, have agreed a pro-rata sum to move due date to pay date, confirmed in a letter. As in Scotland with PRT lease, no longer any issues with "ish dates" in relation to notice.