When should I serve a ten day notice?
Many times I am asked when should a ten day notice be sent when tenants fail to pay rent? The answer lies in your tenancy agreement. We make our tenancy agreements for rent to be paid on the 1st day of each month. In this situation tenants have the right to pay rent up to the end of the day on the first, 11:59pm. This means if we have not received rent by the second day of the month, rent is determined to be late.
As soon as the rent is determined to be late a notice should be sent to the tenant. Each day you delay sending the notice, the timeline for receiving the rent or the person being evicted is extended. The Residential Tenancy Act has rules on when documents are received depending on how they are sent. A ten day notice states the tenant has 5 days to pay the rent, utilities or file for arbitration with the Residential Tenancy Branch. Failing any of those actions, they are expected to vacate the property ten days after receiving the notice.
It is important to understand when the document is received based on how you delivered the notice. Let’s assume the notice was sent by mail which has the longest time frame of five days for deemed received notice. If you mail the notice on the 2nd day of the month it takes five days to be deemed received. You don’t count the day it is sent. That would mean the document would be received on the 7th of the month. That gives the tenant the next five days starting on the 8th to pay the rent, which would be the 12th day of the month. Based on this information, it means a tenant would have until the end of day on the 12th to pay the unpaid rent with no further action to be taken. If the tenant fails to pay within this timeline they are supposed to move out after ten days of receiving the notice. Looking at the mailing process the ten day time would be on the date of the 17th of the month. This means if the tenant is residing at the property on the 18th of the month they have failed to follow the requirements of the notice. This will require the landlord to file for a hearing with the Residential Tenancy Branch to obtain an order of possession to have them vacate the property.
Many landlords wait until the 18th or later date to file with RTB if they failed to send the notice on the first day possible. What is often misunderstood, is that if the tenant fails to pay the rent by the 12th means they no longer have the right to the rental property. What a landlord could do is file with the Residential Tenancy Branch on the 13th requesting an order of possession due to unpaid rent. This will speed up the timeline of when a hearing will be scheduled. Waiting until the ten days has expired gives the tenant more time at the property and extends the time it takes to have them moved out of the property. If they move out after ten days as required, you can cancel the hearing request.
Need assistance managing your rental property, Cartref Properties can assist you, call today to discuss your needs. You can find more information about us at: www.cartrefproperties.com
