Business Support Officer – Tenancy Sustainment

Placed: 30/11/17
Region: United Kingdom
Category: Jobs


Content of the advertisement:

A Property Development and Management firm based in North London are looking for a candidate to join their team as Business Support Officer, working with clients from both the Private and Public sector.

This role will be responsible for support and monitoring across various areas of the private sector housing department. This includes tenancy support and sustainment by enabling customers to manage their rent accounts and avoid eviction. The candidate will also deal with the prevention of rent arrears and income maximisation. Previous experience working with housing benefit is essential.

You will be working closely with the allocations & finance teams to provide a high quality, value for money and customer focused income collection service for all tenures and partners, businesses and agencies. You will be interacting with residents, landlords, local authorities, as well as other external professional agencies.

The successful candidate will have experience of handling housing benefit claims and will have some knowledge of welfare rights and debt advice. Ability to work under pressure and to strict deadlines. Experience of working as part of a team, excellent communication skills and experience of working with Microsoft Office packages and database systems.

Responsibilities:

The post holder will work within the Business Operations Team and report to the Operations Manager. Being a brand new role it is vital that you are versatile and flexible as the role takes form.

Initial duties are likely to include the following;

Ensuring the accuracy and consistency of all records
Ongoing management of housing benefit claims
Tenancy sustainment, support and debt advice
Responding to complaints and enquiries from residents
Delivery of customer services to a diverse range of customers
Provide advice, information and support for effective income collection service to customers across all tenures for current debt as required. This will be done in line with policies, processes and the escalation procedure, delivering service in line with service standard
Working to a welfare benefits framework for individual applicants with focus on how to maximise income by working in partnership with residents and local authorities
Resolving issues using an interagency/departmental approach
Provide timely and highly quality written and verbal communications to resident, local authority and finance team.
Effectively manage, resolve and respond to resident, business and local authority enquiries.
Contribute to the development, maintenance and monitoring of systems, registers, records and databases for the efficient use, storage and retrieval of data
Work with colleagues to develop cross-departmental solutions to effectively manage rent arrears and minimise financial loss
Providing various reports to senior management
Ensure all databases and management software systems are updated promptly and to a good standard allowing for other colleagues to understand entries and update customers when enquiries are made.
Undertake databases analysis and research and produce reports as required.

Essential Skills/Experience:

Close attention to detail
A proficiency in the use of MS Office including Outlook, Word, Excel and Access
Strong analytical and numerical skills
Accounting, business or finance-related qualification or experience (degree would be an advantage)
Good practice and legislative knowledge relating to income recovery and in particular different tenure types
Working knowledge of accounts payable, receivable and purchasing would be an advantage
Strong team ethic, with the proven ability to work effectively and collaboratively within a team or independently with individuals at all levels
Some knowledge of notice/court procedures would be beneficial
Ability to listen to others, follow instructions and respond positively to constructive feedback

Price / Salary: £20000 - £25000/annum