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Banking facility for a Resident's Company?

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midnightcatprowl
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Banking facility for a Resident's Company?

#189993

Postby midnightcatprowl » December 29th, 2018, 8:24 pm

I'm wondering if anyone here has first hand experience of this sort of account and has any comments to make on them?

I'm one of the Directors for the Resident's Company for a small estate of terraced houses on just two short roads. The Company has a limited number of responsibilities of which the most important is the maintenance of the two un-adopted roads on which the estate was built in the mid-1980s. Each homeowner - be they resident in the house or landlords - has to pay an annual charge which is currently at the level of £80 per year, this pays for various ongoing minor matters but mainly accumulates against the long term cost of repairing or replacing the roadways as required.

Currently we have a banking facility with Nationwide - which I believe has been in place since the estate was built - our Treasurer describes this facility, which is for community groups, non-profits and the like, as distinctly 'old school'. There is a passbook. We have to pay our annual fees by cheque. The account can't be managed online. On the other hand the account has always worked well and, by today's standards, we get useful interest on the Company funds. Technically speaking arrangements could be made for home owners to pay their annual charge via online banking but our Treasurer is concerned that the 'old school' nature of the account could lead to problems. He lost me slightly in the reasons for this but our Treasurer is a qualified and practising accountant and I'm happy to take his word for it.

Over the last two or three years the suggestion has been coming up (and I must admit that a good proportion of the suggesting has been from me) that though it is fine for home owners to pay by cheque if they wish to, we feel we should have the facility of being able to pay by online banking. Getting money in is never easy, particularly with many of the home owners living off-site and some of those home owners now being housing associations from whom it seems to be particularly difficult to get money, but not everyone has a cheque book to hand as it were nor systems which revolve around cash and cheques. I've got a cheque book but I have to look for it each year in order to pay my fees and I've been concerned that some younger home owners in particular could well have bank accounts which don't offer cheque facilities or which need a special request to get a cheque book. At a recent AGM it turned out that we now have one homeowner (a young person who has also agreed to be a Director!) who does not have a cheque book. There was also a general agreement that though it will always be difficult to extract money from some owners, it might be easier if we used more modern and readily accessible payment methods.

It seems unlikely that we can find an account for our sort of organisation which has no fees and which would offer an equivalent level of interest to our 'old school' Nationwide account, though if we could obviously we'd snap it up. However we are wondering if we could find a no fee account which could be managed online, where home owners could pay fees by online banking, and which we could use as a receiver account also used for the immediate financial needs of the estate, but where surplus cash could be transferred to our 'old school' account to be accumulated against future needs.

You'll have guessed by now that I have the job of tracking down suitable accounts. I've been able to identify some banks offering accounts for Resident's Companys, non-profits and the like, which would seem to meet our needs. NatWest, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, Santander, seem to have suitable accounts would could be managed online and into which home owners could pay fees by online banking. These all seem to be fee free for accounts which don't have deposits above £100,000 per year which would be okay for us. I've excluded Metro Bank which has an okay account but a fee free limit of £50,000 per year (okay for now but might not be if we increase our fees) and no remotely local branch. I'm doubtful about Santander - I've never had an account with them but know someone who had a lot of fun and games with their account - but maybe it is the same with all banks? Know the right person and you'll have a dire tale to tell?

Lynn
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mc2fool
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Re: Banking facility for a Resident's Company?

#190027

Postby mc2fool » December 30th, 2018, 2:59 am

midnightcatprowl wrote:I'm wondering if anyone here has first hand experience of this sort of account and has any comments to make on them?

Yes. I too am a director of a residents' company, in my case of the small block of flats that I live in.

We use one of these https://www.lloydsbank.com/business/retail-business/current-accounts/treasurers-account.asp and are quite happy with it. It's a full blown modern current account, with faster payments (in and out), direct debits, standing orders, etc, and full online access. You can sign up as many directors as you want to it and can require two authorisations for outgoing payments.

Fee free but a turnover limit of £50Kpa and, of course, no interest...

MikeyWorld
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Re: Banking facility for a Resident's Company?

#191353

Postby MikeyWorld » January 5th, 2019, 8:36 pm

If you want interest, you could link it to a Virgin business savings account. Minimum £1k.

https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/business/


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