Business Bank Account Frozen

EversleyB

I am a small hotel owner and Natwest have frozen our business bank account.  They asked us to complete some company information back in February which we did, and they said that was all good and that they would let us know if they required any further information.  Last Wednesday our account stopped working.  We had had no notification, phone call, email or letter to say this would happen.  We are now unable to access our funds, direct debits are bouncing and I have had to pay staff wages from my personal account.  It's a nightmare.  We completed the information that they requested (shareholder percentages) on Friday, and were told that it would be reviewed in 48 hours.  Obviously they don't work weekends.  Spoke to them today and it's still under review.  We have banked with NatWest for over 30 years and there is a considerable sum of our money sitting in their vaults!

Is there anything we can do?  Can I claim anything for they fact that I am having to pay everything from my personal account?  Will I have to pay charges on my bounced Direct Debits?  All our payments from our guests from the weekend are sitting in the Merchant Service account with nowhere to go!

Any advice greatly received.

Sandtree

Lots of banks are realising their "Know Your Customer" checks over the years weren't what they should have been and so several banks have gone through a process of repeating it for every company... we are with Barclays and also had terrible experience with them but thankfully didn't result in freezing just many hours wasted giving the same information that was always on Companies House and public record.

You will need to register a complaint with them that they gave no notice, Barclay's did give us circa 2 months notice that they'd be freezing our account for "not giving them the information" (which we had given them 3 times already and the 1st chap had said it was their error for not getting it from Companies House).  The complaint should include a claim for any of your actual losses such as the charges for bounced DDs etc. I dont see how paying from your personal account causes any actual losses, its effectively a directors loan to the company which it can repay to you once the accounts are unfrozen. 

If you aren't happy with their response then you can escalate to the Financial Ombudsman if you fit their definition of a micro business and so inside their scope.