Your tenant has not paid the rent. The first three days decide almost everything.
None of those three days involve a form. Most arrears are a changed pay cycle, an expired card or somebody overseas, and three days of proper contact sorts the majority of them at no cost.
After that it is a choice between two notices, and which one you serve matters far more than most owners realise. There is a calculator and a calendar further down that works out every deadline for you.
Three things owners get wrong in the first week.
Each one is common, each one is expensive, and together they explain most of what goes wrong with arrears in Western Australia.
"I will give it a fortnight and see."
Rent is in arrears from the day after it was due. Two weeks of silence becomes six because nobody wanted to be the one to send something, and by then the options are worse and the conversation is harder.
"I will send a notice straight away."
The opposite error. A form on day one, before anyone has picked up the phone, turns a bank error into a fight and costs you a tenant you had no reason to lose.
"They always pay eventually, so why bother."
Letting a repeat late payer go each time feels generous. It means that in two years you have no record of a two year problem, which is the only thing that will end that tenancy.
Days one to three, before any notice.
Most arrears are not a refusal to pay. They are a changed pay cycle, a card that expired, a bank that held a transfer, or somebody overseas. Three days of proper contact sorts the majority of them and costs nothing.
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Day one, ring them.
Not an email, not a text. A phone call, and a friendly one. The opening line is a question, not an accusation: the rent has not come through, is everything alright. Nine times in ten that is the entire conversation, and you have kept the relationship intact for the next two years.
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Day two, ring again and text.
If they did not answer, try again at a different time of day, then send a text as well, because a text gets read when a call from an unknown number does not. Bear in mind they may be out of the country, on a worksite with no reception, or in hospital. Silence on day two is not evidence of anything yet.
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Day three, the emergency contact.
Still nothing, so try the emergency contact on their application. Ask whether the tenant is alright and how to reach them. Do not discuss the rent or the debt with a third party, because that is their private financial information and it is not yours to share. This call is a welfare check, and framing it that way is both the lawful version and the one that works.
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Day three, decide.
If you now have a reason, work with it, and the next section is for you. If three days of calls, texts and a welfare check have produced nothing at all, that is the point to issue a notice. Not day one, and not week six.
If they answer and tell you they have lost their job.
This is the good outcome, even though it does not feel like one. A tenant who rings you back and tells you the truth is a tenant you can work with, and working with them is almost always cheaper than replacing them.
Take the vacancy seriously before you decide. Ending a tenancy here costs you the arrears, which you may never fully recover, plus the weeks it sits empty, plus advertising and a letting fee, plus whatever the property needs before it can be shown. That package runs to several thousand dollars on an ordinary Perth rental, spent to swap a known tenant for an unknown one.
So put an arrangement together instead, in writing, with dates and amounts.
- Part payment while they get back on their feet. Half the rent now with the balance added to the coming weeks is a real option, and it keeps the tenancy alive.
- A written payment plan. Set out what they pay, on what day, and when the arrears clear. Get it agreed before you accept any money, because an undocumented part payment muddies the status of a notice you have served.
- The WA Rent Relief Program. Private tenants who are behind on rent and in rental stress or severe financial hardship can receive up to $5,000 per household, plus financial counselling. It runs to 30 June 2027. Of the households helped so far, ninety per cent were still in their tenancy six months later, which is the whole argument for using it.
- Financial counselling and emergency relief. Free financial counselling is available in Western Australia, and a number of charities run emergency relief for rent, food and utilities. A tenant in this position usually does not know any of it exists.
- Centrelink, if they are newly out of work. A claim takes time to come through, and knowing the date the first payment lands lets you build a plan around it rather than guessing.
None of this is charity on your part. A tenant who gets through a bad quarter with your help tends to become the tenant who stays four years, pays on time and tells you when the hot water system starts making a noise. That is worth more than four weeks of arrears. Rent Relief figures and eligibility are per the Western Australian Government and change from time to time, so check the current criteria before telling a tenant they qualify.
And if the arrears are hurting you too.
Nobody writes about this part. The rent has stopped but the mortgage has not, and every other page on arrears is written as though the landlord has unlimited patience and a spare four thousand dollars.
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Ring your bank before you ring anyone else.
Every lender in Australia has a hardship team, and the reason to call early is that the options get worse as the arrears get older. What owners in this position usually ask about is switching to interest only for a period, or a formal hardship arrangement that reduces or pauses repayments while things are sorted out. Neither is exotic and neither requires you to be in crisis to ask.
The fear that stops people calling is the credit report. A hardship arrangement is recorded as a notation next to the repayment. A temporary arrangement comes off one year after the final repayment under it, a variation one year after it starts, and other lenders see the notation but not the reason. Most importantly, a credit reporting body cannot use financial hardship information to calculate your credit score. The fear is generally worse than the fact.
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Then your mortgage broker.
A broker can see what the bank will not volunteer, which is whether the loan can be restructured or refinanced, and whether a different lender would take it. They do this every week and they are looking at your whole position rather than one account. If you have equity and a decent history, there is often more room than the bank's hardship line suggests.
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Check your landlord insurance, properly.
Many landlord policies include cover for loss of rent or tenant default, and a surprising number of owners never claim because they did not know they had it. Read the policy now rather than later, because these covers almost always require you to have followed the process: notices served, served on time, and records kept.
That is the unglamorous reason the notice sequence matters even when you would rather handle it with a phone call. An insurer asked to pay out on rent default will want to see the breach notice and the date it was served. If there is no notice, there is frequently no claim.
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Selling is usually the wrong answer right now.
It is the first thought for a lot of owners and it deserves an honest hearing, but a property with a tenant in arrears sitting in it is close to the worst thing you can take to market. Buyers discount for the tenancy, an investor buyer inherits the problem and prices it in, and an owner occupier buyer needs vacant possession, which means grounds and notice periods of its own before you can even offer it.
So the honest order is: resolve the arrears, then decide whether to sell. Selling to escape a bad tenancy tends to mean accepting a discount for a problem you were about to fix anyway. If the finances genuinely will not stretch that far, say so out loud to your broker and your accountant before you list, not after.
This section describes options owners commonly consider. It is general information and not financial, credit, tax or legal advice, and it is not advice about your circumstances. Talk to your lender, your mortgage broker, your insurer and your accountant about your own position. Credit reporting detail is per the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
Two options most owners never think to raise.
Both need the tenant's agreement, which is exactly why they work. A tenant who is behind is usually more frightened of the debt than you are, and would rather solve it than have it grow.
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Ask whether they want to end the lease by agreement.
This is not a threat and it should not be delivered as one. A tenant accruing rent they cannot pay is watching a number climb every week, and plenty of them would take a clean exit if someone offered it. They may have family or friends they can move in with, or a cheaper place they have already looked at and assumed they were not allowed to take.
A mutual termination ends the tenancy on a date you both agree, which means you get the property back without a notice sequence or a court application, and they stop the debt growing. You are trading some of what you are owed for certainty and a re-let that starts weeks earlier. Put it in writing, agree the date, and deal with the bond and the final inspection the normal way.
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Ask whether someone can move in with them.
If it is a two or three bedroom and the tenant is on their own, a second person in the house may be the whole solution. They cover a share of the rent, your tenant stays housed and keeps paying, and nobody goes through a termination. Once your tenant is back on their feet the arrangement can end or continue, and either way you have not lost a tenancy over a bad quarter.
The one rule is that this happens formally or not at all. Anyone paying to live there needs your written consent and the agreement varied to reflect it, either as a co-tenant or as an approved occupant. Do not let an informal arrangement drift into existence, because an undocumented extra person creates problems with the bond, the insurance, the condition report and the occupancy limit, and all of them surface at the worst moment.
Choosing the notice is the decision that actually matters.
There are two routes and most owners fall into one without knowing the other existed. The right choice does not depend on how much is owed. It depends on whether this has happened before.
- Notice of termination for non-payment of rent
- Seven days to pay
- No breach notice needed first
- They do not have to leave if they pay what is owing
- Or if they follow a repayment plan agreed with you
For someone with two clean years behind them who has had one bad month, this is the proportionate notice. It is faster, and it is not the end of anything.
- Breach notice for non-payment of rent
- Fourteen days to pay
- Serve one every single time, even for a few days
- Serve it even when they pay before it expires
- A Form 1A with seven more days can follow it
Slower, and that is not the point. Each one is a dated, served, documented record that this tenant does not pay their rent on time.
Both routes end in the same place if the tenant does not pay. The difference is what they leave behind on the file, and that is worth more than the fortnight either one saves you.
Why the breach notice is about to matter far more.
Western Australia is removing no-grounds terminations. Under the reforms announced by the State Government in May 2026, a landlord will no longer be able to end a periodic tenancy on sixty days notice or a fixed term tenancy on thirty days notice without giving a reason. Termination will only be available on specified grounds, and one of those grounds is repeated serious breaches by the tenant.
Read that against a chronic late payer. Today you can simply not renew, or serve notice without a reason, and the problem goes away at the end of the term. Once no-grounds is gone, that door closes. The only way to end a tenancy with someone who pays three weeks late every month will be to show a pattern, and a pattern means served notices with dates on them.
A breach notice you never intended to enforce is still evidence. You are not serving a Form 21 in March because you want them out in March. You are serving it because in eighteen months, when you have had enough, the file either shows eleven breach notices or it shows eleven text messages saying please pay, and only one of those is going to be any use to you.
This is also why being slightly formal with a repeat offender is kinder than it looks. A tenant who receives a breach notice the first time they are a week late usually stops being late. The ones who do not were never going to be talked into it.
The removal of no-grounds terminations is announced government policy and the detail may change before it commences. Do not rely on it as current law, and check where the legislation has got to before making a decision that turns on it. What is true either way is that a documented breach history is useful and an undocumented one does not exist.
Count the days properly, because almost nobody does.
The day you serve a notice does not count as one of the days. A fourteen day breach notice served today does not expire in fourteen days, and a notice that expires a day early is invalid and you begin again.
A Form 1B gives seven days to pay and needs no breach notice first. Use it for a good tenant who is behind for the first time.
Put your dates in and this works out every deadline in the sequence for you.
Day counts and service rules per Consumer Protection WA. This is procedural information about how the process runs, not legal advice about your tenancy, and the outstanding figure is a straight calculation from the dates you entered rather than a statement of what a court would find owing. Check the current forms before serving anything.
Three service rules that invalidate notices.
Each of these turns a valid notice into a void one, and you find out at the hearing rather than at the time.
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The day of service does not count.
Serve a fourteen day breach notice on the first and it does not expire on the fifteenth. Add the day. If you are ever unsure, add another one, because a notice that runs long is merely slow and a notice that runs short is void.
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Email only works if the agreement allows it.
The tenant must have agreed to electronic service, which on the standard agreement means the box is ticked. If it is not ticked, an emailed notice is not served, however clearly it was received. Check the signed agreement before you send, not after.
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Post needs days added on top.
Consumer Protection says allow at least two days within the Perth metropolitan area and more than two for country areas. The calculator above allows seven, which is what we use, because postal timeframes are not something to be optimistic about when the consequence is an invalid notice.
One more. If the last day of a period falls on a weekend or a public holiday, the person receiving the notice can elect for service to take effect on the next working day, which moves your dates. Build in the buffer rather than working to the edge of it.
Where this goes wrong, and it is almost never the law.
The process is not difficult. What makes arrears expensive is a short list of avoidable errors, and they are the same ones every time.
- Going straight to a notice. A form on day one, before anyone has rung, turns a bank error into a fight and costs you a tenant you had no reason to lose.
- Waiting. The opposite error and the more expensive one. Two weeks of silence becomes six because nobody wanted to be the one to send something. Three days of calls, then a notice. Not three weeks of hoping.
- Never breaching a repeat offender. Letting it go each time because they always pay eventually feels generous. It means that in two years you will have no record of a two year problem, and once no-grounds terminations are gone that record is the only way out.
- Accepting part payment with nothing in writing. They pay some of it, you feel better, and the notice you served is now of uncertain effect. Agree the plan in writing first, then take the money.
- Counting the days wrong. The day of service does not count, email needs the box ticked in the agreement, and post needs days added. Each of those turns a valid notice into a void one.
- Missing the thirty day court window. The single most costly mistake. The tenant does not leave, five weeks pass because it all felt too hard, and the whole sequence starts again from the first notice.
- Taking matters into your own hands. Changing locks, removing belongings, cutting off a service or turning up repeatedly. All unlawful regardless of what is owed, and all of it becomes the main issue at the hearing instead of the rent.
- Discussing the debt with the emergency contact. Ask after the tenant's welfare, not their finances. Their financial position is not yours to disclose to a third party.
None of that is a criticism of anyone who has done it. Arrears arrive at the worst moment, involve somebody you have probably met and liked, and require you to act like an institution towards a person. That is genuinely hard when it is your own house and your own mortgage.
Three days of phone calls resolve more arrears than any notice ever has.
How we handle arrears, mostly by not letting them become arrears.
That sounds glib but it is the entire method. Counted out rather than described, because "we chase the rent" is what every agency says and none of them show you when.
- Rent reconciled daily, so day one is day one
- Day one, a phone call from someone who knows the tenancy
- Day two, a second call at a different hour, and a text
- Day three, the emergency contact, as a welfare check
- Day three, a decision, and you are told what it is
A tenant who is one day late hears from us that day, while it is still a reminder rather than a confrontation. Most arrears never get past this column.
- Find out what it actually is, and say so plainly
- Put a written payment plan together where there is a reason
- Refer to the WA Rent Relief Program and free financial counselling
- Refer to a debt collector on day three where there is no contact at all
- Serve the right notice, on the correct day, by a permitted method
- Count the service days and keep proof of how and when
- Breach a repeat late payer every time, so the record exists
- Prepare, file and attend the Magistrates Court application
The debt collection referral is part of our management service at no additional cost to you, and it is disclosed to every tenant at sign-up and set out in their agreement, so nobody is surprised by it. Tenants knowing the process exists is most of why we rarely need it. The court application we prepare, file inside the thirty days and attend, so you do not take the day off.
The distinction that matters to us is between a tenant who has stopped communicating and a tenant who is having a hard year. The first is a process. The second is a person, and treating them as a process is how you turn a recoverable month into a vacancy, a bond dispute and a debt you write off. We will say so even when you are angry, which is occasionally the least welcome part of the job.
We take over management of tenanted properties that are in arrears right now. It is not something to sort out first, and a takeover does not affect the tenancy or reset any notice you have already served. How switching works.
Questions owners ask about rent arrears.
Still stuck on something? Just call.
A Form 21 is a breach notice for non-payment of rent and gives fourteen days to pay. A Form 1A is a notice of termination that may only be used after a Form 21, giving seven days. A Form 1B is a notice of termination used where no breach notice was issued, also giving seven days, and the tenant is not required to leave if they pay what is owing or follow a repayment plan agreed with you.
If it is a first offence by a tenant with a good history, a Form 1B. If they are repeatedly late, a Form 21 every time, because each served breach notice is dated evidence of a pattern. With no-grounds terminations being removed in Western Australia, that documented pattern will be what allows you to end the tenancy at all.
The WA Rent Relief Program provides up to $5,000 per household for private tenants who are behind on rent and in rental stress or severe financial hardship, along with financial counselling, and it runs to 30 June 2027. Ninety per cent of households helped were still in their tenancy six months later. Free financial counselling and charity emergency relief are also available. Most tenants do not know any of this exists until someone tells them.
Ring your lender's hardship team early, because the options narrow as arrears age. Owners commonly ask about switching to interest only or a formal hardship arrangement, and a mortgage broker can tell you whether the loan can be restructured or refinanced. A hardship arrangement is noted on your credit report for a year, but a credit reporting body cannot use that information to calculate your credit score. Also check your landlord insurance, since many policies cover loss of rent and most require the notices to have been served on time. None of this is financial advice, so speak to your lender, broker and accountant about your own position.
Rarely while the tenant is still there and still behind. Buyers discount for a tenancy in arrears, an investor prices the problem in, and an owner occupier needs vacant possession, which has grounds and notice periods of its own. Resolving the arrears first and then deciding usually costs less than selling into the problem.
Yes, by mutual agreement, and it is underused. A tenant watching a debt grow will often take a clean exit if someone offers one, and it gets you the property back without a notice sequence or a court application. Put the agreed end date in writing and deal with the bond and final inspection as normal.
Often the simplest fix, particularly in a two or three bedroom where the tenant is on their own. It only works formally: anyone paying to live there needs your written consent and the agreement varied, as a co-tenant or an approved occupant. An informal arrangement creates problems with the bond, the insurance, the condition report and the occupancy limit, and they all surface at the worst moment.
You can serve one as soon as rent is overdue, which is the day after it was due. In practice, serve it on day three, after two days of phone calls and a welfare check have produced nothing. If the tenant is repeatedly late, serve one every time regardless, because the record is the point.
A Form 21 breach notice for non-payment of rent gives the tenant fourteen days to pay. The day you serve it does not count towards the fourteen, so a notice served on the first does not expire on the fifteenth.
For non-payment of rent, seven days, on both the Form 1A and the Form 1B. A Form 1A may only be used after a fourteen day breach notice. A Form 1B may be used without one. For other grounds a Form 1C applies, and the periods are sixty days for a periodic tenancy on general grounds, thirty days for a periodic tenancy where the home is being sold, and thirty days for a fixed term tenancy on general grounds.
No. Consumer Protection is explicit that the count excludes the day the notice is served. Add a day to every period. If the last day falls on a weekend or a public holiday, the tenant can elect for service to take effect on the next working day, which moves your dates again, so build in a buffer rather than working to the edge.
Fourteen days from the day after service. If they pay the full amount within that period the breach is remedied and the matter ends. The served notice stays on the file either way, which is why serving it is worth doing even when you expect them to pay.
On the Form 1B route the tenant can stop the termination by paying all the rent owing the day before the court date, plus your court application fee. That is how the Act is meant to work, and it is why a tenant who has been silent for six weeks sometimes pays in full the afternoon before the hearing. If you accept a part payment, agree the arrangement in writing first, because an undocumented part payment leaves the status of your notice unclear.
Thirty days from the day after the date the tenant should have vacated. Miss that window and the notice lapses and the whole sequence restarts from the first notice. It is the most expensive mistake on this page and the easiest to make, because it falls in the period where nothing appears to be happening.
Only if the tenant has agreed to electronic service in the tenancy agreement, which on the standard form means the relevant box is ticked. If it is not ticked, an emailed notice has not been validly served no matter how plainly it arrived. Check the signed agreement before you send it rather than after.
Consumer Protection says allow at least two days within the Perth metropolitan area and more than two for country areas, on top of the day of service. We allow seven, because the downside of being generous is a slow notice and the downside of being optimistic is an invalid one.
There is no minimum. Rent is in arrears from the day after it was due and a breach notice can be served on any amount outstanding. Whether you should serve one for two days is a judgement about the tenant, not about the amount.
Yes, every time, and this is the point most owners miss. A tenant who pays three weeks late every month is a problem you currently solve by not renewing. Western Australia is removing no-grounds terminations, and one of the replacement grounds is repeated serious breaches by the tenant. Without served, dated breach notices there is no pattern to show, and no way to end the tenancy.
A breach notice, Form 21, says you are in breach and here is the time to fix it. A termination notice, Form 1A or Form 1B, ends the tenancy and requires the tenant to leave. The breach comes first on one route and is skipped on the other, and choosing between them is the real decision.
Today a landlord can end a periodic tenancy on sixty days notice or a fixed term tenancy on thirty days notice without giving a reason. The State Government announced in May 2026 that no-grounds terminations will be removed and termination will only be available on specified grounds. That is announced policy rather than current law, so check where the legislation has reached before relying on it.
You do not evict anyone yourself. You serve the correct notice, and if the tenant has not left by the vacate date you apply to the Magistrates Court within thirty days. The court may make a termination order, and if the tenant remains after the date in that order you apply for the court's bailiff to attend. Changing locks, removing belongings or cutting off a service is unlawful regardless of how much is owed.
You can claim against the bond at the end of the tenancy and rent owing is a valid claim. It is rarely the whole answer, because a bond is usually four weeks rent and arrears that reach a termination notice are often more than that, with re-letting costs on top. The bond is a partial recovery, not a safety net.
No. The forms are public and plenty of owners run the process themselves. What a manager changes is the part before the forms: noticing on day one instead of week three, making the call without it becoming personal, counting the service days correctly, and keeping the breach record that you will want in two years. If you are reading this at the point where a notice is already needed, that is the part that did not happen.
Worth reading alongside this.
We take over tenanted properties that are already behind. It is not something to fix first.
The checks that stop most of this happening, and the databases a private landlord cannot reach.
What management actually covers, week by week, and where the fee comes from.
Put in your weekly rent and see the exact fee, with nothing behind an enquiry form.
Why the size of the book decides whether anyone notices you are a day late.
Compliance documents, rent reviews and the calculators, at any hour.
If you would rather
not do this yourself.
Ring me and tell me where it is up to. I will tell you what the next step is and what it costs, whether or not you hand it over. If you have already served something, have it in front of you and we will check the dates, because that is the part that is expensive to get wrong.
Monday to Friday, nine to five, and I answer it myself.
About this page and disclaimer
Written by Daria Tedling, Director and Licensee of Local Property Partners, REIWA 2025 Residential Property Manager of the Year and a 2026 REIA National Awards for Excellence Finalist. This page sets out procedural information about the residential tenancy process in Western Australia, drawn from Consumer Protection WA and the Western Australian Government, current at September 2026 and subject to change. It is general information, not legal advice, and it is not advice about your tenancy. The removal of no-grounds terminations is announced policy and is not described here as current law. Sections touching lending, credit and insurance describe options owners commonly consider and are not financial, credit or taxation advice; speak to your lender, broker, insurer and accountant about your own position. Forms, notice periods, programs and eligibility all change, so check the current position with Consumer Protection before serving anything, and get legal advice if the matter is disputed. Tenancy obligations are governed by the Residential Tenancies Act 1987 (WA) and associated regulations. Local Property Partners. Licence No. RA85442. ABN 48 582 232 398.