You are experiencing financial problems and want to ask your landlord if you can pay your rent late. Write a letter to your landlord. In your letter explain: - Why you are writing to him - Why you cannot pay the rent - When you will pay the rent.
Sample Response
Dear Sir,
I hope youHope you and your familyfamily members are staying safe. I am writingI am writing this letter to let you know that the this month’s rent paymentpayment of this month’s house rent willwould be delayed by two months and I would therefore like to ask youI hereby request you to allow me to pay it lateconsider the same.
As you are aware of the fact that we run a small catering business and due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, our business has been shut down for the last two months leaving us almost nil operating cash. In additionBesides that, I have to pay the salaries ofpay salaries to my kitchen staffworkers and driver because they also haveas they too have their families to feed.
Because I have a business loan from a private bank, I have to pay a monthly instalment paymentmandatory monthly installment with no payment holiday availablewithout any moratorium. I am currently under severe financial pressuregoing through tremendous financial pressure and I really hope that you will support me by allowing me to defer the rent paymentdeferring the rent expense by two months during these trying times.
Awaiting your response at the earliest.
Yours faithfullysincerely,
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter states the request clearly, gives convincing financial reasons, and maintains a suitably respectful tone, with logical paragraphing and a useful range of formal language. Its main limitation is that the promised payment time is expressed only as a two-month delay, while several collocations and sentence choices sound strained. The priority is to give a precise payment date and replace awkward business-style phrasing with more natural formal English.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose, financial reasons, and requested two-month deferral address all bullet points in an appropriately formal and sufficiently developed letter.
State the exact date on which the outstanding rent will be paid rather than relying only on the phrase 'by two months.'
Coherence and Cohesion
The request and supporting reasons are arranged in a clear sequence, with effective paragraphing and generally smooth progression.
Link the loan repayment more explicitly to the cash-flow problem so the third paragraph follows even more naturally from the second.
Lexical Resource
The response shows a good range of formal financial vocabulary, although several combinations such as 'nil operating cash' and 'deferring the rent expense' are unnatural.
Use more idiomatic phrases such as 'almost no cash flow' and 'allow me to defer the rent payment.'
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A variety of simple and complex sentences is used with generally strong control despite a few awkward constructions and punctuation choices.
Revise long sentences to avoid loosely attached clauses, especially the sentence describing the business shutdown and its financial effect.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are experiencing financial problems and want to ask your landlord if you can pay your rent late. Write a letter to your landlord. In your letter explain:
- Why you are writing to him
- Why you cannot pay the rent
- When you will pay the rent.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.