How do I add rent arrears from before I used LetCompliance?

My tenant already owed rent before I started using LetCompliance: how do I add it?

Record the months the tenancy has already run, in one go. On the tenancy choose Log payment, then Several months, and save the months that were paid as Paid. Do it again for the months still owed, as Late or Missed. The arrears, the rent statement and your income figures then start from the right place.

The short answer

Use the backfill on the tenancy. LetCompliance builds the rent schedule from the day you add a tenancy onwards, never backwards, so a tenant who moved in a year before you signed up starts with no history. Log payment has a Several months option that records every month from the tenancy start in one go: run it once for the months that were paid and once for the months that were not, and the tenancy shows what is really owed.

Why the history matters

The arrears figure. Without the past months, a tenant who owes three months looks up to date
A Section 8 notice. The Ground 8 threshold is worked out from the rent ledger, so the ledger has to start when the tenancy did
Your income. Paid months are posted to Finance on their due dates, so the rent for the tax year is complete
The rent statement. Month by month, charged against paid, with a balance carried forward, which is what a tenant, a mediator or a court will want to see

Before you start

The tenancy start date and the rent, saved on the tenancy. The rent day comes from the agreement’s rent day if you recorded one, or the start date
A list of which months were paid and which were not, from your bank statements or your former agent’s statements
The amount received for any month that was only part paid

Step by step

Open the property and, on the tenancy, choose Log payment. From the Tenants page, open the tenant’s rent and choose Log payment there; it is the same form
Switch from One payment to Several months. If the tenancy has a start date, the first and last months are filled in from it
Enter the rent for one month. On a weekly, fortnightly or four-weekly tenancy, enter the rent for one period: the form records each due date in the months you pick, and refuses a monthly figure so a week is never charged a month’s rent
Set the status to Paid, set the last month to the last month that was paid in full, and save
Open Log payment again, choose Several months, set the range to the months still owed and the status to Late or Missed, and save
For a month that was only part paid, find it in the payment history and use Part payment to enter what arrived. The rest stays owed
Check the balance against your own figure. Anything recorded by mistake can be removed with Delete this payment on its row

The rules it follows

Nothing in the future. It refuses a month that has not arrived, because rent not yet due would inflate the arrears
Nothing overwritten. A month already on the tenancy’s ledger is left exactly as it is, and you are told how many were skipped
Up to 60 months at a time. For a longer tenancy, record it in two ranges
The same due day every month. A tenancy that starts on the 31st falls due on the 30th in April and the last day of February, and goes back to the 31st where the month has one
No surprise debits. If the tenant later sets up a Direct Debit, a charge that fell due before they authorised it is never collected by Direct Debit
No emails about old debt. Automatic arrears chasing never emails a tenant about a charge more than 90 days overdue, so recording last year’s arrears does not send the tenant a reminder about them
A warning for rent typed twice. If the same rent was already entered in Finance by hand, it says so beside the income it posts

The other ways, compared

One month at a time. One payment on the same form records a single month with its exact paid date. Right for the occasional month, slow for a year
A bank statement. On the trial and paid plans, a CSV bank statement can be imported and each line matched. Use it or the backfill for a given month, not both
The spreadsheet import. It brings properties, tenants, rent amounts and dates in, not payment history

The law where it matters

GOV.UK’s “Grounds for possession: guidance for landlords and letting agents” (updated 1 May 2026, read 20 October 2026) says Ground 8 needs at least 3 months’ rent owed on a monthly tenancy, or 13 weeks’ on a weekly or fortnightly one, both on the day you give notice and on the day of the hearing, with 4 weeks’ notice. The ledger is how you show it, which is why months recorded as paid when they were not, or the other way round, matter.

Common mistakes

Backfilling every month as Paid and forgetting the second run for the months owed
Entering the monthly rent on a weekly tenancy
Recording a month twice, once through the backfill and once from a bank statement
Counting rent the tenant paid to a former agent as arrears

Can I add arrears from my previous letting agent?

Yes, the same way, from the agent’s final statement. Months the tenant paid to the agent are paid months; note that in the notes field.

What if I do not know exactly which months were paid?

Go through your bank statements first. A ledger with guessed months is worse than a short one, because the arrears figure is the one that matters later.

Will my tenant be told about the old arrears?

Not automatically, for anything more than the chasing limit above. Write to them yourself, with the rent statement, once the figures are right.

Does recording old rent change my tax return?

It changes your figures in LetCompliance: paid months are posted to Finance on their due dates, so a month due before 6 April falls in the earlier tax year. Under the cash basis, which HMRC’s Property Income Manual says has been the default for most property businesses since 2017 to 2018, rent counts in the tax year it was received (PIM1092 and PIM1094, read 20 October 2026). So if a month was paid late, across 5 April, log it with One payment and the date it really arrived. Recording old rent does not change a return already sent. GOV.UK says a return can be corrected within 12 months of the Self Assessment deadline, so ask your accountant whether that year needs amending.

The honest limits

There is no import of payment history from a file; each range is entered on the form
Rent history is not fetched from a former agent or another app
The rent page and the rent statement are on the trial and paid plans; the Section 8 notice is on paid plans
The ledger shows what you recorded. Whether arrears support a claim is for you and, if it goes that far, the court