Bills

Council has our contact details if need be. Rates are addressed to an agency. We're on the ball with what's going on, If I noticed nothing was paid for 6 months I would just call the agency to see what is happening. In 10 years though I have never had to.

 

There are a lot of hoops for the council to jump through on order to get the right to sell a property to recoup outstanding rates - much more than a bank.

 

I noticed I wasn't getting the water bills for over 6 months after I had bought a particular place! Three quarters (9 months) of water bills that I hadn't received. I think the conveyancer did a very bad job... I looked at the dispersments listings and saw she forgot of things I needed to pay and I went... this isn't right...
Shocker.
Anyway, Sydney Water were fine with it and I fixed it up as soon as I realised. A little bill shock (paying the multiple bills at once) but imagine if my other bills were all forgotten....

 

I don't receive any bills in the post or have to manually pay anything, everything is direct debit, statements emailed. Even the ATO bill comes online now although I had to actually do something to pay it, would be better if they just sucked it out of the bank account.

 

You outsource anything to someone you are untimely responsible if something goes wrong. You can either trust and value your time or spend your time doing it yourself. Either way is good.
Freedom always carries a risk.
we pay all bills for around 80% of the properties we manage. Yes there is always a chance balls can be dropped but people value the service so we offer it.
We don't charge extra for the book keeping service, it's a value add to our clients if they want it.

 

Personally I have not opened any of my own letters for the past 10 years or more. That's what book keepers are for

something CAN always go wrong - it can go wrong if I did it myself too.

 

The best part about paying your own bills is the credit card points you accrue!!

 

But the surcharge that applies would render any benefit useless.
Do you really think point are free?

 

Nothings free but if you have numerous loans with all/any of the big 4 you will be paying a yearly package fee anyway so why not use a CC with no additional fees.

 

The credit card may be free, but the surcharge isn't.
Have a look closely at your bills, credit payments are accepted, but there is a 1% surcharge.
If you do the math between what your points are worth and the surcharge applied, its likely to be not worthwhile.
Where there is no surcharge, that's a different story - which is why my first question is, "do you take amex" and the 2nd question is "is there surcharge".

 

But a lot of bills (eg rates, water) will tack on an additional processing fee (eg 0.7%) if you pay with a credit card, so not worth it.

 

Yes that is true, I don't pay rates etc by cc but I will use them when its not going to cost me any extra.
I should have been more specific in that cc don't necessarily cost you any more to have as the yearly fee is paid anyway.

 

@Scott No Mates and @Biz fair enough. I prefer to handle the serious ones myself (Council Rates, Insurance, Land Tax). I'm not quite so concerned about the Water Bill.

 

I think the important thing is just being vigilant and keeping an eye on it if you are not doing it yourself. It doesn't mean you bury your head in the sand and do a fist pump if someone forgets because it will just come back to bite you on the bum. I steer the ship but keep an eye on it all.

 

I think i worked out it was 0.4% charge on the mastercard was the breakeven point. For Amex it would be 1.2%.

 

My water and rates are all credit card surcharge free.
What the bill says is why I pay.

The only one it doesn't work on is one body Corp where it needs to be paid via dd.

Gets me lots of free stuff.
So yes, it's free

 

I just use my cc at work and take money from that than pay the bills with cash. I get points and a trip to the lovely post office.

 

Hey Gockie, I think I must have used the same person once, cost me about 250 in water as the tenant had left by the time I worked out what was going on with the council, conveyancer did an extremely poor job.....worst in 30 years, ironically it was someone I tried as recommended by others (who clearly do/did not know a good conveyancer from bad).....also cost me about 750 in other fees extra

 

No good! Well, this one I got while attending a school fundraiser, I won a half price conveyancing service to be used in a limited period of time. I had another conveyancer I trusted and would have used otherwise...