Paying cash into someone's account at a RBOS branch

Kilty_2

Compound wrote: »

Raphael, are you paying cash into the same BRANCH where your landlady's account is held? A different RBS branch might take the cash but send a credit to your landlady's branch under the old paper system. This Bank Giro Credit takes two working days if done before the cut-off. It could take an extra day if going between England and Scotland, but it should never take 10 days. Handwritten account details can lead to issues/delay compared to preprinted slips. It's all pretty inefficient compared to swiping the customer's card for an instant credit.

That must be an RBS thing because I bank with Lloyds TSB and pay in money at different branches quite often, still clears instantly.

Paul_Herring

digerati wrote: »

Do make sure you get a signed, dated receipt for rent payments with the amount. That way if your landlady gets mugged before hiding the cash under her bed you'll be protected. Otherwise it's your word against hers regarding rent payments.

As I alluded to earlier, the landlady getting mugged is not the only thing that could happen.

smithja

It sounds like the problem relates to you not using the same branch of RBS your landlady's account is at as Compound says. That way it might be taken as a Bank Giro Credit and takes 2-3 days to hit the destination account. I dont know if RBS have updated their systems so that it does not matter which branch you pay money in at, it will show instantly as it always has with the now LloydsTSB (the old TSB always worked that way and they moved over to it after their merger). James

Raphael

Thanks everyone for your advice, as Paul Herring says, I was starting to suspect she had reasons not to want me to pay the money into her account and was trying to use that as an excuse...

After thinking about it for a bit, I decided to just ignore what she'd said about her coming to pick up the rent in the first week of the month, and went in to the RBS to pay in this month's rent as normal before she got a chance to get in touch. Then I could just show her the receipt when she came around to pick up the money and explain that I preferred to keep doing this in the future.

Imagine my surprise when the teller told me she had no trace of that account at all, there was no account with that number (and it was definitely correct, that's the same account I'd been paying rent in in the past), and even a name search didn't return anything.

Hmmm, that just adds to my suspicions, but I guess the rest would be off-topic in this thread...

Paul_Herring

but I guess the rest would be off-topic in this thread

Well you started the thread. I'd be interested in hearing about any developments.

Raphael

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Well you started the thread. I'd be interested in hearing about any developments.

I really need to come back here and log in more than once a year, but things have been hectic and it's only now that I have a bit more time and I'm getting around to sorting all my finances, and reading other topics here, etc...

Regarding my landlady, I wouldn't have been bothered if I'd thought the only reason she didn't want the money to show up in her account was for tax purposes or other personal reasons that are none of my business but there were also a number of things that made me worried about my situation...

First of all she had never provided me with a lease and kept finding excuses whenever I brought up the subject, saying she'd send it in the post etc.

Another thing is she had made several threatening comments in the past about evicting me if I did so and so or didn't do so and so, making me suspect she didn't really want to play by the rules.

One of her comments had been along of the lines of "if I ever find out you smoke inside the flat, I'll get you kicked out straight-away, no matter what the law says" - I wasn't particularly worried about that since I'm a non-smoker and can't tolerate people smoking in my flat anyway, but if she was ready to kick me out for that, and didn't care what the law said, who knows what other things she might get up to...

When she visited the flat later on, she'd also commented on how it wasn't tidy enough (fair enough it was a bit messy and I still had boxes lying about etc, due to not having enough furniture yet or storage space, but there was no damage to the flat or anything I thought she could genuinely complain about, I didn't see how it could be her problem, she wasn't the one who had to live here after all), and she'd have to put an end to my tenancy if that continued.

On another occasion she also said someone who'd lived there before had supposedly enquired as to whether the flat was empty as whenever he walked past the curtains were drawn and there was no light or sign that anyone lived there at all... Eh?! The point is I worked nights and mostly slept during the daytime, but what's that got to do with her anyway, so long as I paid the rent it shouldn't have mattered... to me it all just sounded like another disguised threat, making me understand she had other prospective tenants.

In a word, I found her behaviour really intimidating and that was one of the reasons why I didn't want to see her turning up on my doorstep every single month to collect the rent.

Also, because I didn't even have a written tenancy agreement, I felt particularly vulnerable. Something that occurred to me was that if she insisted on getting the rent paid in cash, she could use that as an excuse to evict me claiming I persistently paid it late - which was the case for a while, not because I could not pay or did not want to pay on time, I'd always paid it in time before, when I had her bank details, but because she only came to the area once a week or sometimes even less, and would just leave a voicemail saying "I'll be around tomorrow between 7pm and 8pm", most of the times it would mean I'd have left for work already, I tried to tell her it'd be more convenient if she came straight to my work (I would also have felt more secure meeting her there if I knew I could have someone next to me as a witness) since it was only a ten minutes' drive for her, but she always refused, saying it was no big deal and she'd just pick it up the next time she was in the area...

In the end, I went to talk to someone at Shelter, who reassured me saying that the lack of lease could only work in my favour: since she'd failed to provide me with a written tenancy agreement, and had never made me sign the AT5 form, by default I had an assured tenancy and even if she took me to court she wouldn't be able to kick me out that easily. Phewww...

She ended up giving me new bank details, and that's how I've been paying the rent since, keeping all the receipts. She also finally sent me a tenancy agreement (short-assured tenancy) and the AT5 form, backdating them to 25th August 2006 (a week before I moved in) so I was advised not to sign them.

More recently I had to apply for housing benefits, and that was my main concern, I tried to explain to the HB office why I hadn't signed the lease but in the end they just refused to consider my claim if I didn't sign it. After getting advice I ended up signing it, but dating it this year, as I was advised the AT5 form should have been signed before I moved in and before any tenancy agreement started, and that signing it now would mean it's not valid.

Got my benefits decision today, I'm entitled to £65 per week, that's really gonna help, don't know why I was too scared to apply before, it's just that I didn't want to have to move again - and didn't know how I could possibly a) find another flat I could afford to pay the deposit and rent for until I got HB b) provide references and pass credit checks -, and my landlady had made me feel really vulnerable...

Now waiting to find out if I can get it backdated because of those circumstances, but I'm happy anyway, that's me sorted for now, anything I can get on top will be extra, I managed without it for a while but could do with it (always paid rent on time but deprived myself of other things instead, need new clothes / shoes for instance as I'd soon just as well go naked, haven't visited optician or dentist in recent years, have no contents insurance, etc) but I won't count on it...