Joint account with my Neighbours?

nickjhall

Hi,

Not quite sure where to post this so will start here...

I recently bought a house with my Girlfriend, part of the searches revealed that the house was reliant on a pump for disposal of foul drainage to the public sewer. Our 3 neighbours in the same terrace also use the pump and the pump located in our neighbours front garden. At the time we were reassured that the pump was maintained by the original developers and the 4 freeholders were responsible for any costs incurred, which our solicitor was happy with.

However, last year the pump system failed and our neighbour phoned the developer to have it seen to, only to find out that they had ceased trading. She did manage to find another company to undertake the work at a reasonable cost, and the invoice was split 4 ways between the freeholders. It also transpired at the time of the repair that the electrical supply to the pumps was run directly from her electricity meter, although it does then have its own meter in the cabinet. Basically the whole thing is a bit ropey…

Our neighbour has contacted a solicitor and all the neighbours have come to an agreement to set up a bank account, which we can all pay into to provide funds for the ongoing maintenance and repairs of the pumps and to pay the neighbour for the electric used by the system. We have also found a company who we can take out a maintenance contract with for maintenance at set periods at a set price.

However, we are having trouble finding a suitable bank account for this use. We obviously want a simple account with just a chequebook (no cards, overdraft etc) but want to have at least two signatories to be able to draw any funds from the account to prevent any one person doing a runner with the cash! We visited our local Barclays who were not particularly helpful and just tried to set us up with a regular consumer account…

Does anyone know of a bank or building society that can provide us with an account suitable this?

[Deleted User]

The setup you need sounds quite similar to a residents' association. I know RBS (but I'm sure lots of others do too) will operate a current account for a residents' association. The one I'm aware of runs with any 2 signatures from 3, with a cheque book, no cards or overdraft, no charges or credit interest.

withnell

HSBC do an account called a "Community Account" I think - basically you need too look at business accounts for clubs/societies

Mikeyorks

nickjhall wrote: »

and the 4 freeholders were responsible for any costs incurred, which our solicitor was happy with.

So there's something in the Deeds - which is helpful. Set up a simple (as inferred in post #2) Constitution (which pivots around what is in the Deeds) - in order you have a Resident's Society. Makes it easier to set up the account and also to conscript future changes of property owners.

On that basis a standard current account should fit - as some Trust etc accounts have side effects. Halifax, for example, have an Asset Reserve account for such purposes but require an initial balance of £5k (despite you can them withdraw £4999 of it as soon as the account is established)