LL wants to stop receiving rent

TowerCross

All

My husband has rented out an old cottage to an eldery man for just over two years.
The rent was being paid into my current account via a credit transfer each month from the man's credit union account.

About 4 months ago the man was taken ill & eventually it was decided that he needed to go into a home as he has Alzhiemers. We tied up all the loose ends with the man's daughter - returning the deposit, helping her move his stuff etc. and after a few weeks managed to rent out the cottage again.

The problem is that there is an automated transfer setup on his CU account to my current account each month. I rang my bank, PTSB, to see if it is possible to stop a credit to an account. They told me that they have no control over any payments being made to an account, only debits.

So I rang the man's CU & explained the situation. They told me what I already knew, that they cannot do anything without the man's consent or someone who had been given power of attorney. They did say that they would contact the man's daughter & explain the situation but I suspect that they have not been able to contact/find her as nothing has happened.

We have tried to contact her ourselves but the number we have seems to be invalid - she must have changed it since we returned the deposit etc. We don't know what home the man has moved to so can't leave a message with them.

Ptsb has suggested a very round-about solution - essentially they can setup a transfer from my account to the suspense account in the CU so that I can "return" the money with the man's name as the reference, there is no reference to his own account number & of course the CU cannot give it to me to set up a direct transfer to it.

I rang the CU & explained the process I am going to use & they are happy with that - I have also written a letter outlining what I am going to do so that it is on paper. The last thing I want is a bill from the person with power of attorney or the man's estate when he passes away for thousands of euro.

So my question is - is there any other way I can stop this money from being lodged to my account??
Thanks,
T,

Eldarion

Not without changing/closing down your own account number really. Mightn't be too big an issue for you if you have a separate account for dealing solely with that property. If you close your account the transfer from his CU account will "bounce" back into his account on each attempt then it's nothing to do with you anymore.

To be fair though, it sounds like you have gone above and beyond what is required of you in this instance. Keep a perfectly clean paper trail of the money being received and "returned" to the CU account each month and you should be completely in the clear. Still a bit of a headache to have to keep checking each month though.

quietsailor

Your doing the right thing by returning the money but just beware of the charges on your account for these transactions - they won't be high but they will mount up over the year.

Secondly, make sure the money always goes OUT of your account, even though you're doing the right thing if (for example) there is a month where other items reduce the balance too much and the DD to his account bounces you could miss it. It would paint you in a bad light if, in the event of his estate/person with power of attorney comes to meet you money is not returned.

TowerCross

Thanks Eldarion & quietsalior.

Unfortunately the account the money is being lodged to is my personal current account - it's my own fault. We do have an account that is dedicated to the rental property only but I was caught on the hop just before Christmas last year when the man rang me asking for the account number to lodge the rent to. He was changing his own setup & was in the CU setting up a new SO & the only number I had to hand was my own personal current account so gave him that. fatal mistake as it turned out!

So unfortunately I can't close my current account - it has over 20 years of dds etc setup so not feasible.

I did get caught out last month quietsailor - I wasn't expecting the transfer as I had assumed it had been cancelled & so was wondering why my balance was looking so healthy!

That's a good idea about keeping a log of all the transfer returns - there is a reference number online when I make a transfer so will keep track on an excel spreadsheet.

Thanks for your help.

T

beauf

TowerCross wrote: »

...So unfortunately I can't close my current account - it has over 20 years of dds etc setup so not feasible.
...

You can set them up again. Not sure why the length of time is relevant.

wicklowwonder

Ensure all the money is returned and cancel your account it will things a lot easier in the future.

SuperS54

Also be careful that at some point the man himself or his family may cancel the DD, make sure your bank will notify you and/or automatically cancel your DD to him as soon as this happens otherwise you'll be out of pocket.

The_Conductor

Returning the money via direct debit- is a mess of a situation.
If you have contact details for the old man- if you know what nursing home he is in for example- leave a letter to the attention of his daughter there with the matron, explaining the situation and giving her your contact details. I presume from the details you've given that you would have an idea of which home the gentleman is in?

daveohdave

The_Conductor wrote: »

Returning the money via direct debit- is a mess of a situation.
If you have contact details for the old man- if you know what nursing home he is in for example- leave a letter to the attention of his daughter there with the matron, explaining the situation and giving her your contact details. I presume from the details you've given that you would have an idea of which home the gentleman is in?

Always an idea to read the first post in a thread before replying....

TowerCross

All

Thanks for the responses.

Unfortunately we do not know what home the man was moved to - we do know what hospital he was in & my husband did visit him a few times while in there. Needless to say the hospital cannot tell us which home he was moved to.

I do not want to close my current account as it will involve too much work to setup a new account. I appreciate that there are "switching buddies" with ptsb who will cancel all dd on my account & resetup but I then have the responsibility of checking that all dozen or so current dds go out correctly. Also, I will then need a new card, setup new Paypal details, setup new LPT details, revenue details, change my payroll details etc And I just could not face into all that hassle.

My current account works perfectly the way it is, I operate it in such a way as I can avail of free fees - so like the motto, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I have not setup an automatic SO from my account to the CU - at the moment it is manual. I will have to check each month circa the 20th/21st to see if the credit has come in. If it has then I will manually transfer the money back. The CU told me that even if the power of attorney/estate cancel the transfer they are unable to tell me, hence the need for me to manually check.

The man in question was born in Ireland but lived in the UK for most of his life, as far as I understand he only returned to live near his daughter a couple of years ago so there are no local friends that we can speak to. This daughter moved from the village where the cottage is situated so we can't even knock on her door. We have no idea where she is now.

Anyway, thanks for all your help. It looks like I have only two choices, close the existing account & setup new one or the manual return of any transfer made and I am going to go with the second.

Once again, thanks for all your help,

T

Thoie

While the hospital may not be able to give you the daughter's address, or the details of the nursing home he's gone to, ask them if they'd be able to post on a letter for you?

If you wrote a letter, stamped the envelope, maybe they'd put the address on it and post it?

Alternatively, you could ask them to ring the nursing home, and leave a message for the daughter to contact you (along with your contact details)?

Neither of those involve giving you his private details, but may get the message across.

I wonder if the daughter would have paid for mail forwarding at the local post office? If so, a letter to your cottage may get sent on (and if it's a small village, asking at the local post office may be worthwhile anyway).

TowerCross

Thanks Thoie - that is great outside the box thinking!
I would never have thought of either of those approaches.

Thanks again - am off now to write a few letters, can't do any harm.

T

Mrs OBumble

I'm taking a guess here, because I haven't been involved with this side of the welfare system in Ireland - but it's just possible that the payments will stop all by themselves:

Once he's been in (presumably state-funded) nursing home care for X weeks, it's likely that his pension payments will stop. And when that happens, his CU account balance will fairly rapidly hit zero.

It's not guaranteed, of course, because it depends on how much cash he has in the CU, and how exactly his pension is being put in there.


OP, another option for you is to just transfer the cash into another interest-bearing bank account and leave it there - so it's just waiting for his daughter or estate to come looking for it. While this may feel "wrong", in many ways it's cleaner, and it's what many housing associations etc do.

One thing to keep in mind when talking to officials (banks, hospitals, etc) about this: very often, privacy rules mean that they cannot give YOU information. But they can accept information from you, and they can pass it on with your consent. Knowing this helps you understand that they're not tryign to be difficult - and gives you a key about how to find solutions - you need to ask them to do things that the can do, not things that they can't.

Thoie

A few other thoughts as well - if you know the daughter's name, and depending on her age, you could take a look on Facebook/LinkedIn for her. Try both her maiden and married surnames.

Depending on where the village is, you may find there aren't that many nursing homes in the area. You could try ringing the 4 closest (zoom in on the village in google maps, then search for nursing homes) to see if that gives results. Be up front with whoever you're talking to - if you just start asking for the patient "for personal reasons" they may clam up. If you explain that you're receiving a standing order from the patient that his daughter needs to cancel, they may be more willing to pass on your phone number to her.