Direct debits and address changes - question for bank employees mainly

a_q

Hi all,

I'm thinking of moving house.

I was wondering if banks in general/or in particular have any mechanisms for disseminating change of address information for a account holder to the organisations that are authorised with that account to take direct debits?

If these organisation want to change the agreed DD amount but can't contact the account holder by post then there's a problem isn't there?

Thanks.

Orford

I've no idea whether banks offer this service, although I've never heard of it.

But there is this, which may be useful:
http://www.iammoving.com/

Mikeyorks

a_q wrote: »

I was wondering if banks in general/or in particular have any mechanisms for disseminating change of address information for a account holder to the organisations that are authorised with that account to take direct debits?

No. The DD mandate (the sole data held by your Bank) is purely a mechanism for authorising debits from your account - there's no 'reverse channel' back from it to the originator. Even via the originator's Bank. And a lot of companies will only accept an address change directly from you - not via a 3rd party. It's to do with basic security.

a_q wrote: »

If these organisation want to change the agreed DD amount but can't contact the account holder by post then there's a problem isn't there??

Depends on the communication channel you've established with the originator .... as relatively few mandates are created on paper these days? So if you communicate with them online / by phone ...... they wouldn't normally write to you?

Extant

It's your responsibility to change an address with the DD originator, in the same it would be for someone who you pay by debit card.

If worst comes to worst, then the company can send a letter to the bank asking us to forward correspondence to the customer, but that's about it.

anniecave

each organisation has its own records I would agree

For the last few years I have had some accounts at my parents address and some at the address(s) where I have been living and no-one has ever even asked the question when my current account has not been the same address as the savings account it is linked to.

a_q

Thanks for the replies.

»» It's your responsibility to change an address with the DD originator

Indeed - you have to send out change of address info to EVERY DD originator you've ever used, in case they decide to write to you out of the blue possibly years later, and 10 days later vary a DD. Even this isn't foolproof - they might not receive or process your change of address notification.

The iammoving web site looks useful up to a point, but it needs tens of thousands of private companies adding to it to give decent coverage.

robnye

surely if you where moving/changing addresses, then contacting all companies that you pay on a monthyl/quarterly/whatever basis would be on list of things to do........

Mikeyorks

a_q wrote: »

Indeed - you have to send out change of address info to EVERY DD originator you've ever used, in case they decide to write to you out of the blue possibly years later, and 10 days later vary a DD.

For most of them the change of address is significant. For your Council Tax .... obviously so. For your car insurer .... the risk changes with postcode so the premium can change. For your contents insurance / structure insurance .... the address change means a new policy. Gas / Electric - new contracts.

It's not just changing the address - there's a whole host of fundamentals that change because of it. There's no way I would contemplate leaving a 3rd party to do that for me ..... it's all part of the move process.