Secure Homes - what do you think?

AngelMom

Hi all,

I've have been trying to re-sort my finances yet again! and wondered what your opinions are on Secure Homes. We have been with them since we had our first home almost 20 years ago! but I have just realised that they are now charging us £14 per month for the services they provide.

We went with them initially as we were both young and DH was paid four weekly and I was paid monthly so we thought it would be easier to manage our finances this way.

Do you think we would be better off operating our joint Lloyds TSB as a budget account and setting up direct debits with gas/elec/water etc or putting a sum aside each month in the Lloyds account and just paying whatever bills come in when they come in? Or is it worth paying the £14 to secure homes each month?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this one?

Thanks very much

:A

waddy80

What exactly do secure homes do? I've never heard of them.

Is it a bill management service? If this is the case yes you are wasting £14 a month.

grumbler

http://www.securehomes.net/

What a waste of money (IMHO):eek:

oldwiring

grumbler wrote:

http://www.securehomes.net/

What a waste of money (IMHO):eek:

Might be less painful to pay the bank charges:rolleyes:

Back in my fistant now bank worker days there used to be such things as budget accounts. They had a notional limit udually of three months' paymrntd in of the annual extimated expenses, but if outgoings were irregular the manager just maked off any excess as approved and no charges were incurred apart from the interest. Do I presume such animals no longer exist, as a downside of allowing the computer to do it all?

oldwiring

grumbler wrote:

http://www.securehomes.net/

What a waste of money (IMHO):eek:

Might be less painful to pay the bank charges:rolleyes:

Back in my fistant now bank worker days there used to be such things as budget accounts. They had a control limit udually of three months' paymrntd in of the annual estimated expenses, but if outgoings were irregular the manager just maked off any excess as approved and no charges were incurred apart from the interest. Do I presume such animals no longer exist, as a downside of allowing the computer to do it all?

grumbler

oldwiring wrote:

...Back in my fistant now bank worker days there used to be such things as budget accounts. They had a control limit udually of three months' paymrntd in of the annual estimated expenses, but if outgoings were irregular the manager just maked off any excess as approved and no charges were incurred apart from the interest. Do I presume such animals no longer exist, as a downside of allowing the computer to do it all?

Cannot just a usuall current account with an agreed overdraft do the job? A&L offer just 5.9%-7.9% EAR with Premier accounts. Nationwide's rate is below 10% ...

miffa64

ditch them! you can do it all yourself. open a basic bank account transfer all your d/debits, & standing orders to them then I would sugest useing a money management program (I use money 2000) input all your payment details into it and how much a week/month you will be putting in to cover your bills and it will do the rest. i.e. it will let forcast if you will have enough to cover bills etc. good luck!

shmollin

Me and my wife have been with secure homes since day one, and when they first started, everything run fine, but since they have got bigger things have not been so good. Now they have changed their name to one bill for some reason, When I first joined with secure homes I was so impressed with them that I recommended them to friends, they had offices that you could get to and always answered the phone, but it seems those days have gone, and Secure homes is not what it was. I would never recommend them to anyone now that they have changed, They use to know how my account run, but don’t seem to have a clue now, and the worst thing is if you are a day late with payment they won’t pay the bill’s I am on Disability living allowance and everyone knows that payments from social are often hit and miss, in the past Secure homes knew this and always paid the bills knowing that I will pay even though it’s a day late, and in the days of Steve Hooley (he run our local branch) he would let us miss our Christmas payment and make it up after Christmas by paying a bit more on top of what we paid.
I don’t recommend them to anyone and I will be sorting out my own bills from now on. Avoid them by all costs, if you do your home work then you will find other ways around your bills.

mini1_2

I've been with Secure Homes since the day I bought my first house in Sept 99, and from day 1 they have been brilliant! I can honestly say hand on heart I have never had a problem with them in the 8 years I've had an account. I have always received a fantastic service from them and dont really contact them that often to be honest, coz I dont need to!:T I think I used to pay Barclays about £12.00 a month for a current account and they were a flippin nightmare, but I really think that £14.00 isnt that bad, but hey thats my opinion. To be honest its nice not to have to worry about getting money into certain accounts for certain dates, my hubby and I split the bills and pay the monthly amt half each, although we've got a monthly account, we pay it every two weeks, they've never bounced any of my payments. I think if you asked 50 people about any company they;ve dealt with you'd get at 1 person who had problems, but I'm happy to say they have been fab for me

mrrk

hey guys can anyone give me a telephone number please, i cant find it anywhere, and their website doesnt work.

Thanks for your time and help in advance

Plasticman

So basically, you pay £170 a year for somebody to organise paying your bills? Surely all you need is a bank account and some direct debits set up??? Most utility providers will be happy to take a fixed payment each month.

Am I missing the point?