Diagnostic Questions to Determine if Renter intends to pay
Firstly, how far behind on rent are they? Have you sent them notices in writing about late rent, and if so how many have you had to send? How often do they say they are going to do things (like pay overdue rent) and they never do? To tell you the truth IMHO, if they are starting to be regularly late in rent payments and they don't do things they say they are going to do - then it is time to evict them. In NSW Australia, if the tenant is more than 2 weeks late in rent, and prior to them reaching 2 weeks late you have called them asking for late rent and sent notices, you can evict the tenants. If the tenants do not leave you can apply to the Tribunal to get them out and ask for outstanding money to be paid to you. However, if it does get to this stage, the tenants may be pissed off so may do some damage to the property in retaliation. Then you have to go back to the Tribunal to get the Tenant's Bond (Security Deposit) and any other funds to repair any damages done to your place. The longer you leave it the worse it will get. We had some tenants similar to this which we finally got out earlier this year. They would say they would pay rent due by the end of the week and no money would come by the end of the week. We took them to Tribunal and got them out, and we got the Bond plus unpaid rent and other money for damages and leaving the place dirty (over and above the Bond) awarded to us - just under $4K.  The tenants said they couldn't pay and so went on a payment plan to pay about $135 every 2 weeks. They didn't pay any of the payments, so then we went to the local court to get a sheriff to go to their new place and take their property. The must have gotten scared from this because they approached the local court and agreed to pay $60 per week. We have currently received about 10 payments so it will be a long time before we get all our money back. As I said the longer you leave it the worse it can get. You should also look at improving your criteria for selecting new tenants. I have given an answer to this question How to choose a good tenant as a private landlord? Hopefully it can give you some ideas of what to ask for when searching for your next tenant. Update due update in Question Six weeks behind in rent is quite a bit to be behind. If the landlord had been asking the tenant to pay the late rent during this period and the tenant had been giving excuses why the rent was late and saying they would pay it by a certain time but never did - it is a big sign that they will tell you lies.  If this is the first time they have been late in paying rent and now they are back up to date with the rent, you might want to give them one more chance. If this is a pattern that happens regularly it is better to get them out, as it will happen again, you will get in an argument with them and then they might stop paying rent altogether. You can usually gain a better perspective of the tenants from their action rather than their words - that is why ascertaining their past rental history is so important when finding a new tenant. "Assuming the renter was properly vetted, the only question worth asking is ""what has changed in your life?"" Perhaps one of the earners has lost a job, or has moved out because a couple has broken up. If nothing has changed but they just don't feel like paying you, start the eviction process. If something has changed and you assess that it's temporary (I lent my brother money and he didn't pay me back -  I'll be behind for a few months but I will catch up; my employer went out of business and didn't pay me for the last two weeks - I have a new job already and am waiting for my first paycheque) then perhaps you are willing to wait. If something has changed and it seems pretty permanent then you might reluctantly start the process. Depending on how long it takes where you live, the renter might get things under control before you finish."
This is an old question that has an accepted answer, but it has gotten bumped due to an edit and the answers given are incorrect. I am assuming this means that every other Friday, the company is going into the open public market, buying those shares and then giving it out to the employees. No. Companies will internally hold shares that it intends to offer employees as additional compensation. There are no open market transactions, so the market price of the stock does not change (at least not due to buying pressure).  The only net effect is an equivalent expense for the compensation, but that should already be accounted for in the share price as normal operating expenses. These share may come through an initial buyback from the market, but more common is that when companies issue new shares they keep some internally for exactly this situation.  If they issued new shares every pay period, it would dilute the existing shares several times a quarter which would be difficult to account for. "Stop spending on the CC with the revolving balance.   After the discussion below I feel I should clarify that what I am advocating is that you make your ""prepayment"" (though I disagree with calling it that) to the existing CC.  Then, rather than spending on that card, spend somewhere else so you won't accrue any interest related to your spending.  At the end of the month, send any excess to the account that has a balance.  This question is no different than I have $X of cash, should I let it sit in a savings account or should I send it to my CC balance?  Yes, 100%, you should send this $750 to your CC balance.  Then, stop spending on that CC and move your daily spending to cash or some other place that won't accrue interest at all. The first step to paying off debt is to stop adding to the balance that accrues interest.  It's not worth the energy to determine the change in the velocity of paydown by paying more frequently when you could simply spend on a separate card that doesn't accrue any interest because you pay the entire balance every month. The reason something like this may be advisable on a HELOC but not a CC is the interest rate.  A HELOC might run you 4% or 5% while your CC is probably closer to 17%.  In one situation your monthly interest is 0.4% and in the other your monthly interest is 1.4%.  The velocity of interest accrual at CC rates is just too high to justify ever putting regular spending on top of an existing revolving balance.  Additionally, I doubt there is anyone who is advocating for anyone to charge their HELOC for daily spending.  You would move daily spending to somewhere that isn't accruing interest no matter what.  You would use a HELOC to pay down your CC debt in a lump or make a large purchase in a lump.  Your morning coffee should never be spent in a way that will accrue interest immediately, ever. Stop spending on the CC(s) that are carrying a balance. (period) Generally credit cards have a grace period before interest is charged.  As long as a balance isn't carried from one statement period to the next you maintain your grace period.  If you spend $100 in the first month you have your card, say the period is January 1 to January 31, you'll get a statement saying you owe $100 for January and payment is due by Feb 28.  If you pay your $100 statement balance before February 28 you won't pay any interest, even if you charged an additional $500 on February 15; you'll simply get your February statement indicating your statement balance is $500 and payment is due by March 31, still no interest.  BUT.  If you pay $99 for January, leaving just a single dollar to roll over, you now owe interest on your entire average daily balance.  So now you'll receive your February statement indicating $501 + interest on approximately $233.14 of average daily balance ($1 carried + $500 charged on Feb 15) due by March 31.  That $1 you let roll over just cost you $3.26 in interest ($233.14 * 0.014).  AND.  Now that balance is continuing to accrue interest in the month of March until the day you make a payment.  It typically takes two consecutive months of payment-in-full before the grace period is restored. There is no sense in continuing to spend on a CC that is carrying a balance and accruing interest even if you intend to pay all of your current month spending entirely.  You can avoid 100% of the interest related to your regular spending by simply using a different card, and no rewards will beat the interest you're charged." "It's called leverage. Here's an example from real estate. The underlying appreciation on a house in certain parts of America is something like 7% a year. So if you bought the house ""all cash,"" your return would be something like 7% a year. (Actually, a little more, because of the rent you would be collecting, or saving, if you were the ""renter."") Suppose you buy the same house, 20% down, 80% mortgage. The rent pays for your mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc. like it is supposed to. The house goes up the same 7% each year. But now your rate of return is 35%, that is 7%/20% (your down payment). You get the whole appreciation but put up only 20% of the money. The bank (and your renter) did the rest." "According to US News, renter's insurance does cover liability as well as your own belongings.  They list this as one of four ""myths"" often promulgated about renter's insurance.  This is backed up by esurance.com, which explicitly mentions ""Property damage to others"" as covered.  Nationwide Insurance says that renter's insurance covers ""Personal liability insurance for renters"" and ""Personal umbrella liability insurance"".  Those were the first three working links for ""what does renters insurance cover"" on Google.   In short, while it is possible that you currently have a different kind of coverage, this is not a limitation of renter's insurance per se.  It could be a limitation in your current coverage.  You may be able to simply change your coverage with your current provider.  Or switch providers.  Or you may already be covered.   Note that renter's insurance does not cover the building against general damage, e.g. tornado or a fire spreading from an adjacent building.  It is specific to covering things that you caused.  This may be the cause of the confusion, as some sources say that it doesn't cover anything in the building.  That's generally not true.  It usually covers all your liability except for specific exceptions (e.g. waterbed insurance is often extra)." "It certainly seems like you are focusing on the emotional factors.  That's your blind spot, and it's the surest path to a situation where your husband gets to say ""I told you so"".  I recommend you steer straight into that blind spot, and focus your studies on the business aspects of buying and owning homes.   You should be able to do spreadsheets 6 ways from Sunday, be able to recite every tax deduction you'll get as a homeowner, know the resale impacts of 1 bathroom vs 2, tell a dirty house from a broken house, etc.  Everybody's got their favorites, mine are a bit dated but I like Robert Irwin and Robert Allen's books.  For instance: a philosophy of Allen's that I really like: never sell.  This avoids several problems, like the considerable costs of money, time and nerves of actually selling a house, stress about house prices, mistaking your house's equity for an ATM machine, and byzantine rules for capital gains tax mainly if you rent out the house, which vary dramatically by nation.  In fact the whole area of taxes needs careful study.  There's another side to the business of home ownership, and that's renting to others.  There's a whole set of economics there - and that is a factor in what you buy.  Now AirBNB adds a new wrinkle because there's some real money there.  Come to understand that market well enough to gauge whether a duplex or triplex will be a money maker.  Many regular folk like you have retired early and live off the rental income from their properties.  JoeTaxpayer has an interesting way of looking at the finances of housing: if a house doesn't make sense as a a rental unit, maybe it doesn't make sense as a live-in either.   So learn how to identify those fundamentals - the numbers.  And get in the habit of evaluating houses.  Work it regularly until it's second nature.  Then, yes, you'll see houses you fall in love with, partly because the numbers work.  It also helps to be handy.  It really, really changes the economics if you can do your own quality work, because you don't need to spend any money on labor to convert a dirty house into a clean house.  And lots of people do, and there's a whole SE just for that.  There is a huge difference between going down to the local building supply and getting the water pipe you need, vs. having to call a plumber.  And please deal with local businesses, please don't go to the Big Box stores, their service is abominable, they will cheerfully sell you a gadget salad of junk that doesn't work together, and I can't imagine a colder and less inviting scene to come up as a handy person." Slightly abbreviated version of the guidance from NOLO.com California state law limits credit check or application screening fees landlords  can charge prospective tenants and specifies what landlords must do when accepting these types of fees. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.6.)  Here are key provisions: I am not a lawyer, but it would seem you have two options if you catch a landlord violating these rules. An idea to avoid the whole problem in the first place: Get a copy of your credit report yourself and take a copy with you to meet the landlord. If they want an application fee, ask why they need it making it clear you know the above law. If they say for a credit report offer to give them a copy in lieu of the fee. In most cases an rent with option to buy is structured as follows: The renter/buyer will place a deposit/premium (not the same as a security deposit) that purchases the option( the right ) to buy the home at a future date at a specific price. The renter / buyer will often pay extra rent in addition to market rent.  Many times this additional rent is contracted to be applied to the purchase price of the home. The risks to the renter/buyer are as follows: Also, something to note: Many people will recommend that you use the additional rents to be applied specifically towards the downpayment.  Be wary of this.  There are no institutional lenders available today that will allow the additional rent money to be applied towards your downpayment.  That means you must come up with the downpayment in cash before closing.  The additional rent payments can  be used towards the price.   Hope that helps.  Good luck! "The rent payment is in principle taxable. However, you should be able to take advantage of the ""rent a room"" scheme, and the proposed rent falls well under the £7,500/year tax threshold for that. So no tax will be actually payable and you don't have to formally declare it as long as you stay below that threshold. You should also be fairly well legally protected in case you do split up in future and you want to remove her. As you would be living there too, she would just be a lodger, not a tenant (technically, an ""excluded occupier""). If you did want her to leave you would only need to give reasonable notice and wouldn't need a formal court order if you needed to force her to go. As JBentley points out, there have been court cases where domestic partners contributing to household expenses while the other partner paid the mortgage have later been able to claim that this implied joint ownership. This was on the basis of a ""constructive trust"" being implicitly setup by the way they arranged their finances. In your case, if there's a clear intention, formalised in writing, for the money to be treated as rent rather than a contribution towards purchasing the property, I think it should make it very hard to claim the contrary later. I would also suggest you be clear about whether the rent includes a share of the utility bills, and that things like groceries would be handled separately and split 50:50 or whatever. As pointed out in a comment, there are template agreements for lodgers you could use a starting point (e.g. this one), but it's likely you'd need to customise it to your circumstances. Another point made in another answer is that there's potential upcoming legislation to give some rights to cohabiting partners. In the current draft, those would kick in after three years or having children. If the bill does come into effect, you'd also be able to sign an opt out, but only after getting legal advice, and it would still be possible (though presumably hard) to persuade a court to overturn an opt out. Overall that does create a small risk to you, but not one that comes directly from your girlfriend paying rent. It's likely that if you are both on an equal financial footing and had always kept your finances separate, that there wouldn't be any award made anyway. And you can't run your entire life on hypothetical risks."