Below you’ll find answers to the questions we get asked the most.
Annually or Half yearly – if you have any further queries contact us
The Factoring Charge covers the cost to the Association of:
- Identifying all work required to common areas in the estate – usually by regular site visits by our Property Services or Housing Management staff.
- Works undertaken generally cover landscape maintenance or day to day repairs to footpaths, fencing and boundary walls.
- Dealing with specific queries raised from residents about the nature or standard of the works, and their accounts.
- Processing and payment of works contractors invoices including a share of any external consultants fees where they have been involved in the preparation or management of contracts.
- Arrangement of building insurance cover.
- Calculating each householder’s share of the cost of the works carried out.
- Raising and issuing invoices to each owner.
- Providing regular information updates detailing the works we carry out on your behalf.
- Processing payments received from householders and setting payment arrangements where appropriate.
- Debt collection action against non- payers – letters, visits and debt collection agency.
- Arrangement of tendering, including working with an approved list of Contractors, to achieve value for money and to safeguard householders’ interests.
The cost of administering these services on the estates is additional to the actual cost of the work carried out.
Invoices for factoring charges are issued twice annually – usually in June and November.
Manor Estates has a buildings insurance policy in place which covers our tenants’ homes and all the flatted properties included in our factoring service. The policy is renewed 31st March annually and each owner’s premium is collected through invoices issued twice each year.
A separate cover note is issued to each flat owner detailing the insured reinstatement value of their property and the premium to pay. This policy is for buildings insurance only and flat owners and tenants are responsible for arranging their own contents insurance.
The contact telephone numbers for our insurance broker are:
Arthur J Gallacher Housing
27-30 Railway Street
Chelmsford
Essex
CM1 1QS
For making a claim please contact Lorraine Newlands Claim Manager on 01245 341 218
Ways to Pay for Factoring Service
Online – by debit or credit card
The easiest way to pay your factoring bill is online by debit or credit card using Allpay’s internet payments service at www.allpayments.net.
You will need to provide your 19 digit AllPay Payment Reference Number when you use this service for the first time. After that, the service will automatically use this reference for your payments. This ‘Payment Ref’ number is displayed on your factoring invoice. Alternatively, you can contact us to request it.
Mobile App – by debit or credit card
You can make payments from an Apple or Android smartphone by downloading Allpay’s mobile app from either the Apple App Store or Google Play.
You will need to provide your 19 digit AllPay Payment Reference Number when you use this service for the first time. After that, the service will automatically use this reference for your payments. This ‘Payment Ref’ number is displayed on your factoring invoice. Alternatively, you can contact us to request it.
Phone – by debit or credit card
AllPay’s automated phone payment service allows you to make payments by phone 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You need your 19 digit AllPay Payment Reference Number in order to use this service. This ‘Payment Ref’ number is displayed on your factoring invoice. Alternatively, you can contact us to request it.
You’ll then be able to make payments by calling AllPay on 0330 041 6497 and entering your Payment Reference Number followed by the amount you’d like to pay and your debit or credit card details.
Direct Debit
You can set up regular payments by Direct Debit to cover this and future bills. Please call us to arrange this, ensuring you have your bank sort code and account numbers to hand.
Standing Order or Bank Transfer
You can make payments to our bank account by standing order or bank transfer. Please ensure you use your account reference number as the reference for these payments (shown as ‘Your A/C No’ on your factoring invoice). Payments should be made to;
Sort Code: 83-06-08
Account: 00299149
At a Bank
Payments can be made at any branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland, using the details on your invoice. Other banks are likely to charge a fee.
Cheques
Please be aware that there is likely to be a delay in payments by cheque being processed. Where possible, we would ask you to use one of the alternative payment methods.
If you do pay be cheque, please ensure that you either enclose the Giroslip from the bottom of the invoice or write your account reference number and address on the back of the cheque.
Payments are required within 28 days of the account being issued.
Manor Estates debt recovery policy is to pursue all amounts that we are due, for unpaid accounts as follows:
– 28 days after the account has been issued a first reminder letter will be issued.
– 28 days after the first reminder letter a second letter will be sent and an administration charge of £20 will be added to the account.
– 28 days after the second letter a final letter will be issued and a further administration charge of £50 will be added to the account.
Should the account remain unpaid our solicitors will be instructed to serve a Notice of Potential Liability (NOPL) on the property, or we will issue your account to a debt collection agency for recovery of all monies owed. The NOPL will prevent the property being sold until the debt is repaid and could affect the householders’ ability to obtain credit. Manor Estates issue NOPL’s to owners who continually fail to keep up payments on their accounts, this means that you, as the owner, need to settle the debt before you can sell your property.
Where we take legal action the costs of any legal proceeding are payable by the owner, not Manor Estates and added to the owner’s account. The owner is responsible for the removal of an Inhibition Order or NOPL served on the property and all the charges associated with their removal. Our debt recovery procedure is available on request and available online.
The Title Deeds set out the property owner’s rights and responsibilities in relation to their own property and to the others within the estate. In practice this means that when you purchase a property you take on rights and responsibilities not just for your own house but also relating to the wider area.
The Title Deeds impose “real” obligations on the owner of the property. This means that these obligations will continue even when a house has been sold with responsibility passing to the new owner.
Your Title Deeds establish your responsibility for meeting a share of the cost of maintaining the shared areas within your estate.
The Deeds also give Manor Estates the right, as factor, to recover the direct costs of any work as well as all costs incurred in managing the factoring service.
A recent legal case confirmed the Association’s right to recover the costs involved in providing the factoring service and described the costs as “entirely reasonable, if not modest”. If you are unsure about any aspect of your responsibilities as a homeowner, you should seek advice from your solicitor.
When you decide to sell your property, the Association should be informed by either the selling solicitor or the owner if the property is to be sold. Once a sale date has been confirmed, the account will be apportioned, and the owner notified via their solicitor.
The Association charges an £91 resale fee to cover the additional administration costs in producing specific information requested by solicitors when dealing with the sale of a property.