You sound awfully confident, I am not sure if you are black society taiko or what, but I always have opinion that there is not much a landlord could do. If you follow proper procedure, by the time you could get some real action taken, the tenants would have owed you a few months of rental.

What other wiser choices ? It's better to do this than you scold, shout, curse, swear .....or write legal registered letters, reminders .....

Fair comments from the post above.

Regarding cutting utilities, I think it's effective but I am not 100% convinced that it shall be legal to do it for standard tenancy agreement. I think I shall include this clause, "the landlord reserves the right to cut the water and electricity supply to the premise if there is late payment of rental more than 1 month, and the costs to resume the utilities shall be bond by the tenant".

You are precisely correct, the tenants are not afraid of law but the landlords are. You can sue the tenants pants off, you can't get them to bankruptcy, the sum of money involved is too little. You waste a lot more time and money. But if the police put the landlord into lock up for a few hours, he will curse mother and grandmother for at least a week !

Seriously it's your choice, whether you want to go above "proper procedure". Like the case of you say you want to enter the premise, let me be a bit more blunt, you are already breaking the law !

At this juncture, I can't help but to emphasize that when buying properties we are all taught LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. In being a landlord it is TENANT, TENANT, TENANT.

I would rather leave my property empty in search of ONE good tenant, rather than spend much time, headaches and hassle to go to court, dealing with lawyers etc when things go wrong later.

How I choose (just to share):
1. I ask where he works and how long has he been in the job. I would call the company to find out his salary etc. Better still ask him if he is willing to answer.
Some may find this ridiculous but bear in mind I am letting you a 100k 200k 300k property at only 1k+ per month and since it is a monthly business, I deserve to know. I can't be renting a 1k property to someone making only 2k per month, 50% for rental is ridiculous (assuming he is a single tenant)

2. I do background check by asking where he rents prior to wanting to rent my place, how much was the rental and reasons to move. I will also ask former landlord's phone number. If he hesitate to provide, don't even need to check blacklist listing lor... understood.

3. Prior to entering the house (confirm rental) I walkthrough the house with him, sit down explain my rental agreement clause by clause and ensure he understands before he signs. Many people don't do this and find arguments later

4. To encourage early payment, I give discounts if he pays rental before the 1st of the month.

These are not new tips, these are all learnt from books and attending seminars. Just sharing only.

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Added on December 29, 2011, 10:33 pmEh just found out there is a thread just for laws la... so useful!
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2138486

i also agree with you that tenant screening is ultra important - if you rush to rent it out as you are heartsick or need the money as there is no rental as its not tenanted, trust me there will be more  headaches if you rent to the wrong tenant! so essentially you have to be able to sustain the vacancy costs in between rental while you look for a good tenant.

Yes, generally the laws are on the tenant side..the landlord/owner's options are very limited and even with these options, its a hassle to get it enforced legally ..cost time and money..Generally lawyers will say - the amount of legal fees and time you have to go through to claim for compensation or whatever, in the end do you think its worth it? so they also in a way malas to take up such cases..