Housing Association Charges

[dollies01]

My housing association, charges £15 for a bounced cheque.

On friday I sent them a preliminary letter requesting the return of £60 in charges that had been applied to my account.

I had a phone call today from somebody in the finance dept.

They explained that these charges are to cover their costs.

I explained that unless they could itemise the cost the charges were unlawful.

They said " But the banks do it"

I said "Yes, unlawfully"

She has gone away now, to "cost" the charge for me

should be a laugh

[blacksheep1979]

let me guess a letter sent out will cost them £10 and person who has to sort it outs time will cost £5.......

 

Enjoy

[dollies01]

lol

There were mutterings about

THEM being CHARGED for MY bouncy cheque........

Oh and each charge is a product of THREE employees work!

three fgs!

[blacksheep1979]

tell them that you are not liable for incompetent employees and that they should seek to remedy that before it cost them more elsewhere in their business.

[dollies01]

Had a reply to my preliminary letter last tuesday, saying that they would look into my complaint and get back to me in the next six weeks.

Sent the Lba on friday,

Phone call today, asking if I had got their letter saying they would be taking six weeks?!

I told them that I wasnt prepared to wait for them and was continuing at my pace not theirs.

The letter, itemising their costs is being typed now and should be with me on Wednesday at the latest..........I cant wait! lol

[dollies01]

The letter from them arrived today:

In response to your letter dated 18th September 2006 I have investigated the points you have made and the findings are as follows.

First of all when a tenant takes on a tenancy, the tenant and the Landlord signs a contract, according to which the tenant agrees and is bound by a contract to pay rent on time and by agreed method. In your case both of these agreements are broken by yourselves.

Secondly you have asked for a full breakdown of charges that Testway have levied due to bounced cheque payments over the last few months. Testway operates a policy of £15 admin charge to ALL its tenants if their payments are not made in time or in your case, cheques not honoured by your bank due to insufficient funds in the account. Hence £60 is charged on the basis of 4 bounced cheques since December 2005. These charges are not unlawful as it covers our admin costs for handling arrears.

When a cheque is not honoured, there are at least three memebers of staff across two departments spend their time in dealing with updating tenants accounts on rent system from the time the payment is received first time, and then updated again when cheque is returned by the bank. Testway is also charged by its bank for the cheques that are not honoured.

Hence £60 are charged on the basis of four bounced cheques since December 2005

Please also find enclosed a leaflet which shows the various methods of payment testway has to help tenants.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need further information.

Mrs D Patel

The grammitical errors are not typos either! lol

anyway, I personally think this is a crock of poo

I want to take this into court, can anyone advice if I am in the right, and what I would put in the particulars of claim please?

[blacksheep1979]

When a cheque is not honoured, there are at least three memebers of staff across two departments spend their time in dealing with updating tenants accounts on rent system from the time the payment is received first time, and then updated again when cheque is returned by the bank

 

but they don't charge you for their time when a cheque isn't bounced....

[dollies01]

exactly!!

Im thinking of sending one final letter, including this website address, I think their bank must owe them a fortune too!

[barracad]

I think their bank must owe them a fortune too!

 

Not necessarily... they will have a business account where they get paid per transaction, and whilst they do get charged for your cheque bouncing it may well be less than £1 - this would be seen as a legitimate service fee.

 

Anyway that doesn't make any difference to you. I will be interested in the outcome of this, I feel you have a good case - £15 seems excessive for an admin charge, even though there does appear to be a certain amount of manual intervention involved.

[barracad]

Also I'm quite surprised that a RSL is making a charge at all, considering their purpose is to provide affordable housing.

[dollies01]

£88 a piggin week too!

[dollies01]

I dunno what to do really.

The lady dealing with it at Testway, clearly has no idea what I was saying, she keeps saying

"but the banks do it" like its some kind of excuse.

Three members of staff, pressing what probably amounts to two keys each on a pc, a letter, envelope and first class stamp, wouldn't add up to £15 even if you do include the charge their bank makes to them.

But for the sake of £60 is it worth making a fuss?

[meagain]

I dunno what to do really.

The lady dealing with it at Testway, clearly has no idea what I was saying, she keeps saying

"but the banks do it" like its some kind of excuse.

 

My response when the banks tell me "Everyone levies those charges" is "In which case I'll have to kill you. I mean, lots of other people commit murder every year, so by your own faultless logic it's perfectly fine for me to break the law too."

 

On a more serious note, make them aware that if they provide you with a full breakdown of exactly what it has cost them, with evidence to support it, you will happily pay that figure in lieu of the £15 in future. At least that way they can't say you're being dishonest either.

[dollies01]

Ive had three phone calls with the woman now and each time, she has said she will provide me with a breakdown of the charge.

The letter I got yesterday was it transpires, her version of a breakdown............

Im having my own private one

lol

[Seminole]

I suspect that £15 includes a profit element although the RSL probably doesn't know what it is. However, I used to be FD of two large housing associations and I think the cost base is going to be higher than for, say, a bank charge. They won't have many bounced transactions and most housing systems will require a manual entry to reverse the payment.

 

Worth arguing about- particularly when they use the banks do this argument. Worth suing over- I don't know but I suspect that if pushed they could probably produce a costing justifying about two thirds of the charge.

[dollies01]

I have started a new letter.

It needs tweaking and a closing paragraph, if anyone would like to help with???! lol

Dear Mrs Patel

Thankyou for your letter, regarding my issues, with Testways "admin fee"

 

I have taken on board your, comments, that it takes three members of staff to deal with a uncleared cheque.

However, I fail to see how this manual intervention would actually cost Testway anymore than pence, unless your staff are paid £7 per nano second. It is noted, that I don't incur a charge when the cheque doesn't bounce!

You mention that your bank charge Testway for unpaid cheques, and this I don't dispute, but the charge is normally less than £1.

So, it seems to me that a true breakdown would read more like this:

Bank charge...........£1

key pressed on pc by three members of staff .................0.75p

Letter, envelope and stamp sent to my address.............£1.50

[blacksheep1979]

get rid of the £7 per nano second bit and assume it takes 10 mins of staff time and change it to £100/hour or thereabouts

[Guest ian cognito]

I suspect that £15 includes a profit element although the RSL probably doesn't know what it is

 

1. I understood HA's weren't supposed to make a profit and 2. this clearly makes it a penalty!

[dollies01]

I received this letter today:

Dear Mrs Dollies01

Thankyou for your recent letter to Mrs P**** which has been passed to me for attention. I reviewed your original complaint and our response.

The administration charge made for "bounced" cheques and other payments not honoured by the banks is not a penalty, nor is it a profit making devise for the organisation. It is a reflection of the costs we incur and which would otherwise be bourn by tenancies as a whole which is not, in our view, fair and equitable. We don not believe that the charge is excessive and as you are aware apply in all instances of returned payments.

The time taken to process a returned payment includes establishing which tenancy is effected this can be complicatedwhen more than one tenancy shares the same last name: adjustding the tenancy records both financial, housing, computerised and paper record filing as well as writing to the tenant. There are different considerations in each case

and the time spent varies in each instance. In addition there are the bank charges, which are for us more than £1.00 and as you rightly point out the cost of stationary and postage. When the payment is then re-presented by the tenant the process for receipt has to be repeated which means that the work the employees would have been doing during this time is also deferred. In effct, the cost to us of a returned payment is processing the returned payment. repeating the received payment process and the delay

of other work.

The charge was increased to £15 around the time of the stock transfer from **** in 2000 and has not been reviewed subsequently for inflation.

We hope this letter will help you to understand better why the charge is made, if you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me

Yours blah

blah

blah

[barracad]

The time taken to process a returned payment includes establishing which tenancy is effected this can be complicatedwhen more than one tenancy shares the same last name:

 

 

Suggest to them that they write the name and address of the tenant on the back of the cheque before they bank it, thus saving them hundreds of man hours and thousands of pounds of costs. And as you are not charging them for this business consultancy service, they should waive the fee as a goodwill gesture!

 

 

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[dollies01]

Lol Barracad...........I Actually do always, put my name and address on the back of my cheques!!

I don't see how they could mix me up with relatives as they are all in prison

(joking!!!)