Those of you who are long-time readers of my blog will remember that the Rector of St. Matthew’s Church and I do not see eye-to-eye. To explain the latest difficulty will take some background.
I live in a flat the nomination rights to which are held by a charity, Community of the Holy Trinity, of which the Rector is the Chair. When I was nominated to live in this flat, the Rector asked me to pay
I’m probably missing something here, but I don’t see any action by the rector in this.
why would standing orders cease? that looks like a malfunction at your bank, nothing to do with either the Community of the Holy Trinity or the Housing Association. Didn’t you set them up as monthly transfers with no stopping date?
SOMEthing caused the financial transfers to stop. Yes, the housing people could have been prompter in saying “excuse me, you owe us money, you’re in arrears”, but I don’t see any malice by either of the groups you regularly send money to, just harrumphing when the transfers, for whatever reason, to cease.
If you’ve restored the standing orders, with clear instructions that they are NOT to stop until you say so, I wouldn’t see anything problematic.
tell the community (in writing) that you are concerned that your rent was not being forwarded to the housing association, who of course have a reasonable expectation of getting your rent paid in a timely way, and that you have started paying them directly.
good luck. It might be worth seeing a lawyer to have him/her do the appropriate stuff for you, and getting clarification. Tenants have fairly strong protection, and the lawyer will be better equipped than you to claim what you’re entitled to.
You perhaps didn’t get the picture.
The standing order that I pay to the Community of the Holy Trinity did not stop. Each month it was paid into their account.
The standing order that stopped was the standing order that the Community pays into the housing association.
I am certain that Neil stopped that standing order and did not tell me. I think it’s unlikely that the bank stopped the Community’s standing order.
Neil is very stupid about money (thus the
gotcher, my misunderstanding of the narrative on the first go-round.
(like you I would have been surprised if banks dropped a standing order – most of them are quite competent about their business)
You were saying you weren’t sure what more to do. I’ll tell you what more to do: my advice to see a lawyer stands, reemphasised. tenants do have rights, claim yours.
not only that, have your lawyer ask the Community what happened to the money that you in good faith paid to them.
Get documentary evidence from your bank that those monies were duly paid, amounts and dates. Preferably on a single piece of paper, not tangled in with all the rest of your financial doings in that account. You may have to pay for a letter from your bank to that effect, but this is hard evidence, and worth it.
while this might be nasty of me, is it possible that the monies that you (and possibly others, are there other apartments in this situation?) are dutifully paying in has been embezzled? he does have a history here. If you don’t get satisfaction within the week on what happened to the money, the fraud squad of your local constabulary might be interested. Likewise the higher-ups in the diocese. I know you’ve spoken to the archdeacon, but if he is committing financial malfaisance (again), this is serious. We’re talking thousands of pounds again, not just
Oh, I’m actually rather relaxed about this in terms of whether I’ll be evicted or not: I won’t be evicted (thus my email to the Archdeacon, who is also chair of the housing association that owns the building). I am also well able to pay the arrears out of my current account, if necessary.
There are no other flats in this situation; this is the only one that the Community has nomination rights over.
It is improbable that he could have embezzled money (not impossible, but improbable) from the Community. If he were embezzling would he be stupid enough to draw attention to it by stopping the standing order?
I will wait and see what he has to say before drawing any other conclusions from it. However, it’s reasonable to assume that there is some kind of jiggery-pokery involved.
The Archdeacon brought Neil up on charges of embezzling the money from the land sale. The Bishop, unfortunately, while convicting Neil of that, did not defrock him (as he could have), but told him to repay about 10% of the money to the parish. This will be used for a comprehensive audit of the finances of the church. The Bishop apparently has a soft spot for Neil. However, the conviction remains on file so it’s possible that if something unsavoury is happening now, the charges might be reopened.
All very annoying, but I don’t believe I’m in danger of eviction.
As my favourite Witch of the West shrieked while being melted, “Wotta world, wotta world!”