How do I collect an unpaid invoice from a property management company?
How to collect an unpaid invoice from a property management company
Short answer
Property management companies often pay slowly because invoices must be approved by the property owner before payment, not just the property manager. Identify who actually approves payment, make sure your invoice is in that chain, and follow up with the right person. For construction or maintenance work, a mechanics lien on the property is a powerful lever if invoices are ignored.
Most unpaid invoices to property management companies trace back to a broken approval chain. The property manager may have signed off on your work verbally, but the property owner (the one actually paying) may never have seen or approved the invoice. If your invoice is sitting with the manager and the payment authority is the owner, no amount of following up with the manager produces payment.
Map the approval chain before you start work. Who approves the invoice? Property manager, owner, or a management-company finance department? Get a purchase order or written authorization from whoever has the authority, and address your invoice to that person. With larger property management companies, that may mean learning their accounts payable portal.
Contractors doing maintenance, repair, or construction work on a managed property have mechanics lien rights if invoices go unpaid. The lien attaches to the property, making it hard or impossible for the owner to sell or refinance until it's paid. The threat of a preliminary lien notice alone is often enough to speed up payment from companies that manage multiple properties and want clean title across them.
For smaller service invoices where a mechanics lien doesn't apply (cleaning, pest control, landscaping) the sequence is call at day 7, written notice at day 21, escalation at day 45. If the company runs multiple properties on your services, name the relationship: "I want to keep working with you, and I need to resolve this balance before I can take new work orders."