Lloyds Bank appears to have contacted at least some of its letting agent clients to say that it is closing all undesignated client accounts with 60 days notice.

The wording of an email sent to agents appears to suggest that instead of having an undesignated account, the agents should set up multiple – which means possibly scores or even hundreds – of individual designated accounts.  

Letting Agent Today has been contacted by Bournes Letting Agents in Hampshire, which received both a telephone call and an email from Lloyds; Julian Blackmore, Bournes’ director, believes the same policy may be applied to agents by all major banks.

LAT has asked Lloyds for its comments and will post them when we receive them – this certainly looks as if it could be a substantial pain, with additional work and cost for agents.

Here is part of the correspondence from Lloyds:

A recent review of your Undesignated Client Accounts (UCAs) [detailed below] has been completed following the information that you recently supplied.

The result of the review is that we’re no longer able to provide you with Undesignated Client Accounts. We recognise this change may cause disruption to your business, and we’ll work with you to explain your options and minimise the disruption as much as possible. 

As a result of this change, you now have 2 options:

Option 1

Close your Undesignated Client Account and open multiple Designated Client Accounts.

•        We’ll need to know how many Designated Client Accounts you require.

•        The process of opening multiple Designated Client Accounts is supported by an automated solution to make opening the accounts quicker.

Option 2

Close your Undesignated Client Account and make alternative banking arrangements.

Please let me know your preferred option by [09/08/2019].

If you select option 1, we’ll need some information about your new Designated Client Accounts and we’ll write to you again with instructions on what you need to do.

In the meantime, your Undesignated Client Account will remain open, and you can continue to operate this until the new Designated Client Accounts are opened and all banking arrangements have been transferred over.