My fear like everyone leasing in the Pandemic is I will sign on a new renter, who will then simply decide to stop paying rent after a few months- due to the seemingly endlessly renewing blanket Moratorium protections. They are happening both at the Federal and State levels, and most don't require any proof of a Corona issue. Then I'm stuck carrying a freeloader on my back, which is far worse than a vacancy.

It seems at least almost a given tenants will now not pay last month's rent, since they can't be told to leave the premises early if they hunker down the last month without paying then bolt (i.e., the 5 Day Pay or Quit is now useless).

And if they leave no employment information, collection is impossible.

Even if you pay all the filing fees and wait assumedly months for your court date.

Has anyone found any new rental lease clause ideas that have been effective in making this situation workable? I can't afford like some to simply sit vacant until this "Forgive Rent" free housing on Us craze blows over. I'm already out a month's rent and can't any more losses :/

New lease clauses won't change crooks from not being crooks. And that's who you're concerned about:crooks, deadbeats, thieves, ne'er do wells, etc.

What you need are better SCREENING PROCESSES that will help you find the good tenants out there.

We took a survey about 2-3 weeks ago, and in spite of 3 months of moratoriums, the VAST MAJORITY of us (90%+) had tenants paying as agreed. A few had some payment arrangements working out. I think maybe 1 or 2 had evictions that began after their moratoriums were lifted?

What this tells me is most people are still able and willing to pay. Your goal is to find them.

How?

Pull credit. History of payments is important.

Contact previous land lord. If they paid on time there, odds are they will pay you on time.

Work situation. Do they have a stable job that would be hard for them to leave and find another with comparable pay?

Criminal background check. Good people are good payers, generally speaking.

I'm thinking of one tenant I had two years ago who only paid her rent on the very last day of her Pay or Quit notices- every single month--- for an entire year.

And she bought herself new furniture (rolling eyes).

In fact one months I had to call her and say "I'm driving to the courthouse at 5 to file...." to get her to make rent.

She finally did take off one month and abandoned the place. But I don't doubt for a minute the trouble I would have been in renting to her today LOL. Whew....>

Screen very well.

What if you try to sue them civilly, and not ask for possession? If they aren't paying you, they could care less about a judgment against them but it may wake them up a little.

I am seriously considering using a clearing house that reports payments to the credit agencies to collect rent.

I think clearnow does.

Its all fun and games sticking it to the LL until they realize that it will start damaging their credit with late/no pays from day 1. So you might not be able to evict them for a time, but their credit starts getting trashed as of 5pm on the 3rd or 5th of the month.

Clearnow "Can" report the rental payments, but the tenant has to contact them directly to request this service. A dead beat tenant or one with questionable rental payment history isn't going to voluntarily sign up for this.

Jeffrey: Because he hasn’t educated himself on proper screening techniques or falls victim to the dime-a-dozen sob stories we all hear?

I don’t know why a landlord would rent to a deadbeat, but it happens every day.

I hear you Jason, and totally get that many of the average landlords rent to deadbeats. I was really addressing Hammer who, like most on this site, would not be considered your average landlord. So my question was more aimed at someone like Jason and others here, who I would guess are not renting to deadbeats. I would even guess that most of those who regularly visit this site would be far more prone to rent to residents who plan on making payments on time and may want to improve their credit score.

This can be especially true if a question was always asked as part of the screening and application process - "Would you be interested in having your rent payments reported each month to the credit bureau which could help improve your credit score?"

In fact, (whether you use a service like clearnow or not) I would strongly suggest that the above question indeed be added to your screening / application process. That way, as Jason points out, you may be able to identify during the screening process the type of resident you do NOT want to rent to (those who would not want their payments reported because they already know they plan on paying late).

On your application, also ask if they are having any problems with their current landlord. Give them plenty of blank lines to respond. In the not-to-distant future, they will be saying the same things about you.