housing association account is £1200 in credit

Yorkshire37

I just rang the accounts team of my housing association (I live in a shared ownership flat), because they took the wrong amount out of my direct debit this month. They agreed, and they also pointed out that I'd overpaid at other points in the last several years. There had also been some "rebalancing" of the service charge in past years. It turns out my account is in credit for over £1200.

I guess it's nice to know but on the other hand I'm not really impressed. Were they planning on mentioning it to me? 

At first, the person I spoke to said she'd refund it all to me, but then she changed her mind and said she'd work out a final figure and get back to me. I've chased up a couple of times since but no response. 

I'm thinking to deal with this by sending a registerd letter asking for the money by the end of the month, and then also cancelling my direct debit and just having them send me an invoice every month. Anyone else have experience of this?

Alderbank

Important - don't cancel your direct debit.

You say you have only just rung the accounts team to get the ball rolling.

Cut them a bit of slack. There are due diligence procedures they have to go through when repaying an overcharge, especially for an amount of more than £1,000.

Give them a few more days. You could spend the time planning how to enjoy this nice little windfall?

user1977

What's the rush? You've managed without the money so far, and the HA isn't going anywhere. If you want to avoid it happening again, just pay more attention to what they're debiting.

Yorkshire37

You're right, I shouldn't be impatient. The "rebalancing" I wouldn't have known about but it wouldn't have hurt me to check on my accounts more often.

HampshireH

You should have received an annual statement which would have detailed this

eddddy

Yorkshire37 said:

I'm thinking to deal with this by sending a registerd letter asking for the money by the end of the month, and then also cancelling my direct debit and just having them send me an invoice every month. Anyone else have experience of this?

Often leases will say that a whole year's service charge is due in one payment at the beginning of the year.

However, sometimes a landlord voluntarily offers a concession that you can pay in 12 month installments by direct debit. I suspect that if you cancel the direct debit, the landlord might cancel the concession, and tell you to pay the full amount outstanding for the year in one go.

And the landlord won't want to send you monthly invoices because that will be much more expensive than collecting the monthly installments by direct debit. (Especially as they probably won't have an invoicing system that's capable of automatically producing monthly service charge invoices - so somebody would have to do it manually.)

Yorkshire37

HampshireH said:

You should have received an annual statement which would have detailed this

I agree, it's a bit weird that I didn't. I got yearly standard letters saying, "Your service charge is going up by x percent as of x date" but never any account statements. If I hadn't rung in I'd never have known that they owe me money. That's shabby.

Altior

Yes, similar experience here: 

Service Charges - query — MoneySavingExpert Forum

In my case, because I review financial information in my day job and reasonably numerate anyway, I spotted the issues before I was charged. Initially they tried to deny there was an issue. Not everyone has these skills, and may have continued to have the overcharges collected, I'm assuming quite possibly ad infinitum. 

Yorkshire37

Thanks that's interesting. Very similar! 

I sent a registered letter today, showing the figures and asking for a full refund by the end of the month. That gives them plenty of time, and it protects my position. If no refund by end of month I'll follow up by putting them on notice that the DD will get cancelled. 

Altior

Personally, I wouldn't recommend cancelling the DD. It risks opening another can of worms. It's most likely admin error/incompetence like my situation, rather than any deliberate attempt to profit. It is frustrating, and potentially time consuming, but the error will be identified and put right eventually. 

Yorkshire37

Alderbank said:

Important - don't cancel your direct debit.

You say you have only just rung the accounts team to get the ball rolling.

Cut them a bit of slack. There are due diligence procedures they have to go through when repaying an overcharge, especially for an amount of more than £1,000.

Give them a few more days. You could spend the time planning how to enjoy this nice little windfall?

I appreciate your response, but it isn't a windfall, it's my money!

I had the same response when I was on the phone with them. They were ating like I'd won a lottery and I was really unimpressed.
If I've trusted someone enough to set up a DD