Being a landlord means you're in property investing for a long haul. This crisis will too pass; you just need to survive through it with moral & financial integrity.
It's important to remember your tenants are your customers, and you want to treat them right. Hard times are ahead for everyone, and we need to support our tenants while they are going through (hopefully, a temporary) difficult period.
Your tenants are probably more worried than you are. Some are young first-time renters who don't know who to turn to and likely never to have experienced financial uncertainty before; some are foreigners who may not know if the Government's assistance applies to them; some are parents who are worried about losing their jobs and the roof over their heads for heir family.
Today you should reach out to your tenants, be compassionate and reassuring and tell them to contact you. The message can be very simple:
"We understand that coronavirus and the lockdown might financially impact you. If this is the case, we want to work with you to ensure your tenancy continues, so please contact us to go through possible options available and come up with a plan that works for us both."
If you're a myRent customer, you can send a generic message to all the tenants across all your tenancies. Just go to your Dashboard, and find an option "Message all tenants" under "My Tenancies" section.
There will be tenants that will lose their jobs and be unable to pay their rent for a period. Plan for this now. Work with your current tenants as you have a better chance of being repaid your arrears. You are not the first, will not be the last landlord to have supported a tenant through an economic downturn.
Make sure you continue to openly talk to your tenants and update each other on the challenges you are both facing.
It's not anyone's fault; we're all in this together, and we will get through this.
Read more:
How best to handle tenant job loss during COVID-19 (Coronavirus)?
How can landlords prepare for coronavirus / COVID-19?
