Playbook, estate agency
Two documents, and neither of them behaves like a bill
An agency issues two financial documents to two different clients and neither is an invoice in the way the recipient expects. A landlord is never billed: the rent comes in, the commission and any contractor costs come off it, and what is left is transferred with a statement explaining the subtraction. A seller does receive an invoice, at completion, and in most cases never pays it, because the conveyancer settles it out of the sale proceeds. Both documents generate questions, and almost all of them are about a single line.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for billing and invoices holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The landlord's document is a record of a deduction rather than a demand for payment, so a landlord asking when the invoice is due has misread what arrived, and the reply has to reframe the document before it can answer anything.
- The statement cannot exist until the rent has cleared, which means its date is set by the tenant's payment rather than by the agency's month end, and a landlord chasing on the first is usually chasing a tenant without knowing it.
- The seller's commission invoice is raised at completion and normally settled by the conveyancer from the proceeds, so the seller receives a document for money they will never transfer and reasonably wonders what it is for.
- Contractor invoices appearing on a statement come from a third party the landlord did not always choose, which is the origin of most statement queries and the reason the authorisation limit matters more than the layout.
How it arrives
- why is my statement lower this month
- when do you pay the rent over to me
- what is this charge on my statement
- do you invoice me for the commission or does my solicitor pay it
- is tax included in the fee on the invoice
- can you send me last year's statements
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The statement layout, line by line | What each line means: rent received, management fee, tax, contractor costs, arrears carried, balance transferred. Landlords read this document once a month for years and a legend they can point at removes a recurring call rather than a one off one. |
|---|---|
| When the payment run happens, and what it depends on | The day you transfer, how long after the rent clears, and what happens when rent arrives late or in part. State the dependency on the tenant's payment explicitly, because that is the fact that answers the impatient version of this question. |
| The commission invoice, and who settles it | When it is raised, the tax position, and that in the ordinary course the conveyancer settles it from the completion monies. Say what the seller is expected to do with it, which is usually nothing, since that is the part causing the message. |
| How contractor work is authorised, and the limit | The value below which you instruct without asking, what happens above it, and how the invoice reaches the statement. Every disputed line on a landlord statement is a disagreement about this limit rather than about the work. |
The reply
A landlord statement is not a bill, which is the part that catches people out. The rent comes in, the management fee and any contractor costs are taken off it, and the balance is transferred to you with the statement showing the subtraction [1]. It cannot go out until the tenant's rent has cleared, so its timing follows their payment rather than a fixed date in the month [2]. On the sales side, the commission invoice is raised at completion and your conveyancer normally settles it from the proceeds. I cannot open your statement or see any figures, so for a specific line send me your name, an email and the month and the accounts side will explain it.
It corrects the category in the first sentence, because a landlord who thinks a bill has arrived will not read anything else until that is fixed. Tying the date to the tenant's payment answers the timing question and the impatience behind it at once. It handles the sales half in one sentence rather than ignoring it, since the same page gets both audiences.
Where it stops
The trigger. The client refers to a specific month, a figure, a named property, a contractor, or says a payment has not arrived.
I have no way to open a statement or see a single figure, so I would only be guessing at your line. Give me your name, an email and which month and property it is and the accounts side will go through it properly.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never explain a particular line on a particular statement, because the assistant has not seen the document and a landlord will act on the explanation before anybody checks it.
- Never confirm that a payment has been sent or received, since nothing in any account is visible to it and a false confirmation stops the landlord chasing a genuine failure.
- Never state that a repair was authorised or that a contractor cost falls within the limit, as that is the substance of the dispute rather than background to it.
- Never quote a figure from a document the assistant has not been given, however confidently the client describes it in the message.
Questions
- Can it look up a landlord's statement?
- No. It has no connection to any accounting system and cannot retrieve a document. It can explain what each line on your standard statement means and when the run happens, which handles the general half and routes the rest with a name attached.
- Which single document is worth publishing here?
- The line by line legend for the statement. It is read every month by every managed landlord you have, it never changes, and it converts a recurring call into a page somebody bookmarks.
- Sellers are confused by the completion invoice. What should it say?
- That it is raised at completion, that the conveyancer normally settles it from the proceeds, and that in the ordinary case the seller does nothing with it. Two sentences, and they remove a call from every single sale you complete.
Keep reading
- Everything for a estate agencyViewings, fees, referencing and deposit rules are answerable at any hour. Valuing a property or discussing an offer is not.
- Handling billing and invoices in generalInvoice copies, tax numbers, purchase order references. Nearly all of it is account specific, so the honest handling is process plus a clean handover.
- Insurance questions from landlords, and the line before adviceA residential policy is rarely written for a let property, and rent guarantee turns on the referencing outcome rather than the landlord.
- What an overnight reply is allowed to promiseEnquiries land long after the branch has locked up. What an overnight reply can honestly promise about Monday, and what cannot wait for it.
- Registering interest, and what it does not buy youBuyers and tenants ask to be told when something comes up. Registering confers no order, no priority and no promise of a match.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.