Dependent
upon the bank it normally takes 3 working days for a standing order to be
received in our management account. In addition to this you must then allow a
further 3 to 4 working days for the monies to leave our management account and
credit your nominated bank account. This overall would provide a 7 day window
for rental payments to be received by us and then paid out to you.
The
above timescales are not set and do vary from bank to bank. This is why we
quote the 7 days in order to ensure that payments are made within this
timescale, dependant upon the method of payment that your tenant has used and
also taking into the account the bank that the monies have been sent from.
If
banks are set up on Faster Payments then the chances are you will receive your
payment within a much quicker timescale but this is not always guaranteed due
to the bank system and not our own internal system. Where banks are set up on
Faster Payments that you could expect your rental payment to be received on the
same date that we receive it, but usually this date is after the "Tenants
Actual Payment Date".
In
order to clarify this the tenant's payment date is technically the date that
your tenant's tenancy commenced. It is not necessarily the confirmed payment
date set in stone as you have to allow the relevant timescales to receive and
send payments as quoted and explained in the information above along with an explanation
into faster payments.
On
occasion a tenant's standing order will fail to be sent. When this happens we
can not class an account as OVERDUE until we have waited the correct timescale
which is 3 working days after the "Tenants Payment Date". If no
payment has been received from the tenant after the 3 days then Letultimate.com
will chase this as an overdue account.
There
are many reasons why a standing order may of, failed to of been sent but Letultimate.com
will take the appropriate steps to achieve a payment and avoid arrears on any
accounts. If a tenant's standing order has failed then we will contact them and
obtain a payment by debit or credit card as we have the facility to do this
which most other agents do not.
Where
we do have to obtain a payment by debit card Letultimate.com will note this on
your on line account. Payments that are made by debit card will be subject to
going through the standard clearance process in our account. Therefore, if we
obtain a payment by debit or credit card then the timescale for the payment to
clear is 5 working days from the date the payment was made.
The
reason for the delay is down to the fact that even though we have processed a
payment it takes 5 working days to clear in our Fee account. We have to wait
until the clearing process has been completed as the tenant has the right to
dispute the transaction within this period in which case the monies credited
would be clawed back from our agency.
As
we have obtained a debit card payment in order to keep the account in order
this will always be paid on the 5th working day. Your, i-track account will
also clearly state that the payment has been made by debit card and is awaiting
clearance. We will also quote the date you can expect to receive your rental
monies.
If
your tenant is in receipt of housing benefit then you may find that the
payments for the first two months will vary in date. It usually takes
approximately 4 to 8 weeks, sometimes even longer for a housing benefit claim
to be processed, dependant upon the area and council. If we are able to accept
a housing benefit application from a potential tenant and you are in agreement
with taking them on you will be made aware that the first few payments maybe
made on various dates.
As
the council need to process the claim which can take 4 to 8 weeks you may find
that the first payment you could expect to receive will be LATE. This is nothing
to worry about as all housing benefit claims are actually back dated to date
the tenant moved into the property.
As
a landlord you may also find that the second payment is delayed. Again, this is
nothing to worry about as the claim is back dated. If a payment is delayed for
the second month then this will be down to a delay or back log within the
relevant council. You will find that by the third payment that all is in order.
Once the claim has been processed and is in regular payment you will find that
your rental account will be paid with the 7 days from the "Tenants Payment
Date".
As
a responsible agent we feel that we need to highlight these facts regarding
housing benefit applications. Once a housing benefit claim has been fully
processed then you will find that this will run smoothly and without delay. In
addition to this information being available on your on line account you would
of already have been briefed about this prior to the tenant's original
application being agreed. We have decided to re-iterate this data within this
section should you have forgot the information at the time the application was
pending agreement.
Letultimate.com
has invested highly in the systems that they use for all accounts. If we are
aware that your tenant is going to be paying their rent account late then we
will inform you in the first instance. If your tenant is experiencing short
term difficulty with their rent account then we will look to obtain an
arrangement to pay with the tenant. This arrangement will be set up on the
tenants account and you will be informed of what the arrangement is.
Letultimate.com will then closely monitor any rent accounts that have an
arrangement to pay to ensure that any arrears balance are kept to a minimum and
do not start to increase.
As
we process any tenant applications more rigorously compared to other high
street agents we are confident that we select the right tenant for your rental
property. We have maintained a high and proven track record in maintaining good
tenant rent accounts and property management services since we started trading
which is something that Letultimate.com is very proud of.
We
do hope that you have found this information useful regarding the process that
we follow for making rental account payments to you. As disclosed above we do
have the extra facility to obtain payments by debit card which means that
tenants have a range of alternative options to make a payment should there be a
problem with their standing order.
