WE PAY THE SERVICE CHARGE EXPENSES
Blockcare300 members can make payments to contractors and set up recurring payments for things like electricity, insurance premiums, cleaner, gardener etc.... It works a bit like online banking, you key who you want to pay, you can UPLOAD the invoice for safe storage, and then we make the payment for you.
Ringley Law offer 2 service levels:
In short there are two authorisation scenarios:
- casting chairman - single person authorisation
- any 2 Directors - dual authorisation
For single person authorisation the lead person presses [SEND] to send the budget or payment request to us for payment, for dual person authorisation, person 1 emails the request to person 2 who then sends the request to us to action.
So you choose the contractors you want and we will pay them, reconcile the bank account and produce the year end service charge accounts.
FREE BANKING & INTEREST ON YOUR SERVICE CHARGE MONIES
BlockCare 300 members get FREE banking*. Your own Ringley administered Client account (holding only funds for your site).
You DO NOT GET CHARGED FOR:
- your own bank account
- bank payments
- direct debit collections
- paying in receipts via a bank's postal or counter service
...ALSO, there are no monthly or quarterly account management charges.
...AND, members get interest on credit balances.
*provided it does not become overdrawn.
No Win No Fee Litigation - Arrears Collection
If you demand it wrong, then you cannot collect, so your demands need to:
- include the prescribed notes
- state the service address of landlord
- reflect the correct demand dates
- be budgeted to the correct year end....
- reflect charges that fall within the 18 month rule
- be reflected in a correctly prepared set of service charge accounts. What Blockcare300 members get is assurance that the service charge demands will stand up in a Court or Tribunal as we will demand the money correctly and prepare and present the service charge accounts to all owners, and, if necessary, serve a Section 20B Notice to ensure that you are not prevented from collecting a deficit (should the accounts be late).*
You will still need to ensure that you adhere to statutory consultation procedures for any big works (any spend the liability for an owner exceeds £250) - or can instruct Ringley Law to run the Section 20 Consultation process for you. For Blockcare300 members we will send out:
- the 1st demand (by post and email)
- polite reminder (by email)
- final notice (by email)
- our financial hardship policy (by email)
- pre-action letter to correspondence address
- pre-action letter to the property
- All BlockCare members get protection as Ringley Law will litigate any service charge and ground rent arrears on a no-win, no-fee basis.**
To be eligible
- The debt must have accrued after you became a Blockcare300 member.
- Your annual subscription fee must be paid up to date.
- Sign and submit the accounts to Companies House;
- The service charge and/or ground rent must have been demanded in accordance with the lease.
**Arrears accrued prior to becoming a Blockcare300 member. We can still collect these but this will be subject to a chargeable evidencial review to advise you if there any procedural flaws and weigh up the merits of your case. To do so you will need to provide us with:
- A copy of the lease
- A copy of the service charge budget(s) for the period in which the debt accrued
- Audit trail of payments being received into a trust or client account Ledgers for the property with arrears
- payment to cover the court fee
- d). Pass company resolutions, e.g., to de-regulate and not need to call AGM's
*Our responsibility for serving Section 20B Notices only applies to each full service charge year that we are appointed.
What if the case needs to go to Court or Tribunal
The no-win no-fee litigation service includes:
- all casework (advocacy is an extra but don't worry, less than 1% of cases proceed to hearing)
- arguments on reasonableness and recoverability
- If you are unsure about whether you are demanding service charges in accordance with the lease, you should choose Blockcare300 so we manage this risk not you.
Banking Account Reconciliation
Relax knowing that we are regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and will reconcile your bank account for you.
Your service charge monies will be:
- held in a bank account which is a designated client account.
- reconciled at least every 6 weeks.
Why reconcile a bank account?
The objective of bank reconciliation is to ensure the manual/computerised cashbook ledger upon which decisions will be made, is accurate (because the cashbook ledger which records payments and receipts matches the physical bank account).
Transactions that may need to be adjusted include
- receipts which bounced, (i.e. cheques returned by the bank, direct debits that failed collection due to insufficient funds).
- direct receipts, (e.g., bank interest).
- failed payments, (e.g., a cheque older than 6 months so cannot be cashed).
What is a cashbook?
A cashbook is a ledger which shows the financial transactions being made into and out of an account.
Without a robust bank reconciliation process the integrity of credit control or arrears action is undermined.
Service Charge Budget preparation
Our service charge budget tool helps you prepare your budget and includes 8 best practice guidance notes referring you to the Code of Practice for Residential Managing Agents as prepared by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA).
For Blockcare300 Members authorising, adopting and splitting the budget is made easy, and, depends on the way you have asked to get set up initially. In short there are two authorisation scenarios:
- casting chairman - single person authorisation
- any 2 Directors - dual authorisation
For single person authorisation the lead person presses [SEND] to send the budget or payment request to us for payment, for dual person authorisation, person 1 emails the request to person 2 who then sends the request to us to action.
For Blockcare300 members we will split the budget between the owners according to the percentages we are given during site set up, then we will send:
the 1st demand (by post and email)- polite reminder (by email)
- final notice (by email)
- our financial hardship policy (by email)
- pre-action letter to correspondence address
- pre-action letter to the property
ll membership levels can upload a lease to their private upload centre"
And, Ringley Law also offer a "Bookmark your lease"service" for just £48 and can advise you on key clauses and the exact service charge collection requirements for your site.
So, if you want answers to questions like:
- when should we next decorate?
- can Flat 3 really sublet to anyone they like?
perhaps us bookmarking the 19 essential clauses is for you.
