Can anyone suggest a good way of managing bills between a handful of leaseholder in a building who all share the freehold. I’d rather not create a separate bank account as we are joint owners (rather than a company structure). Is there some kind of shared pot where you can have some emergency funds and an everyone can contribute into in a fairly informal way? For things like paying building insurance etc. maybe Monzo isn’t the right solution. Thanks in advance.
Personally, I’d make a basic current account somewhere. Even just add a secondary account with Lloyds if you have an account with them. Use that account soley for this purpose. Then it’s very easily audited and you can see who added what, when something was paid etc.
If you use Monzo, you’re going to see it in a mix of everything else.
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Is it not as simple as saying to each tenant, you need to pay £xxxx due on the 1st of each month where you build in a bit of a buffer for higher bills or emergencies.
You can then use Google sheets, shared with everyone, for them to track how much is in the pot after all the direct debits have come out.
Fair enough, thanks. I suppose one of us needs to take control of the finances, rather than just arranging bills to be split ad hoc, which does mean having a separate account. I wondered if there was some kind of shared pot that existed.
I suppose you could have a shared tab?? Dunno if this is what you need though!
I am not an expert on leasehold but I think you need to tread carefully here. Suppose one of you creates a bank account in their name and every one contributes, technically the money then becomes theirs and in theory at least they can do what they want with the money.
One of the reasons to have trust accounts is to ensure the money can only be applied by the trustees in the correct way. When I was an accountant we always created a small company to manage the leasehold as it makes it easier to managed and each flat owner has a share.
The easiest way is a company limited by guarantee but other structures are available.
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Definitely use a separate bank account, but beware rules on personal vs business use. For what is described some banks (e.g. HSBC) will view it as business, others (e.g. NatWest) have broader definitions of what is personal. It is something that is watched and audited - so pick the right bank. Hope helpful.