Excuses for not paying rent

By Tenant

Here is a page for all renters out there. Hopefully, if you are late on paying your rent you have a really good excuse as to why. Listed below are some of the excuses tenants make every time they are late on paying their monthly rent and dues.



  • Roommate excuse. The roommate excuse based on the name itself uses the tenant’s roommate as a reason to justify not paying rent. They may say that their illegal roommate had skipped out on them and that they will be late for paying the rent but promises to pay within the next week or so.
  • No Income yet. This is the most common excuse tenants make. They may make up some stories about not able to pay rent this week or this month due to their company having some troubles mailing the checks to their employees because of some issues with the post office or something.
  • Boyfriend excuse. Some will make up fake boyfriends and blaming them for losing the money which was intended for paying the rent and instead pays the landlord with a little amount of money and say that that would do for now.
  • Closed bank account excuse. This is also very common to tenant who pays checks rather than cash. Once their check bounces they would say that their bank had closed their bank account without telling them thus making an excuse for not paying the rent for this or that month.
  • Dead Excuse.  This is a weird excuse yet sometimes it works. Dead excuse involves the tenant making some ghost stories about their dead mother or anyone from their family who passed away telling them not to pay rent until they talk to them again.
  • The IRS. With this excuse all blame went to the IRS.  Tenants would say that the IRS froze all their accounts and assets thus they won’t be able to pay their rent on time and it will take them about a week or so to find another source of income to be able to pay their monthly rent.

Edited on: Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 5:33 am

15 Responses to “Excuses for not paying rent”

My response: (We welcome stories, examples, explanations, answers and a touch of your personality)
 

Alonso

March 19th, 2013 1:20 am

Tenants would relay go to the extremes just to make excuses for them not to pay their monthly rent on time.


Lincoln

March 20th, 2013 1:20 am

As a landlord I would prefer hearing the truth rather than the make up stories of my tenant about not being able to pay the rent.


Sanjuanita

March 21st, 2013 1:20 am

It would be great if the landlord and the tenant would work together to make some kind of a deal on how the tenant can pay his dues and back rent.


Moses

March 22nd, 2013 1:40 am

Landlord giving his tenants some slack only helps the tenant to dig his hole deeper.


Charleen

March 23rd, 2013 2:00 am

Cut us some slack! We know a fake excuse when we heard one.


Deonna

March 24th, 2013 2:00 am

What do tenants think of us? We are not dumb enough to accept believe all this crap about not being able to pay the rent.


Towanda

March 25th, 2013 2:20 am

I remember a tenant filing a complaint against me because I was not able to help them pay their rent. Lol.


Blaine

March 26th, 2013 2:20 am

People go to all sorts of lengths for money.


Andrea

March 27th, 2013 2:20 am

Fake boyfriends. Lol


Hugo

March 28th, 2013 2:20 am

Fake boyfriends excuse was funny. But dead excuse? What the hell?


Lizeth

March 29th, 2013 2:20 am

How about not being able to rent because of money allergies excuse? Hahahaha.


Olin

March 30th, 2013 2:20 am

That’s true though. The IRS gets everything…. I mean everything….


Clay

March 31st, 2013 2:40 am

That’s only if you don’t pay your taxes.


Herschel

April 1st, 2013 2:40 am

One way to prevent this from happening is to make sure that before you let the tenant rent your unit; you do a thorough background check most especially his credit history if there are any evictions or complaints filed against him due to not paying rent.


Bill

April 2nd, 2013 2:40 am

People would go to such lengths just to get out of their debts even for just a couple of days.


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