Bank locks homeless charity account over Christmas

The boss of a homelessness charity said it had been left in a "precarious position" after Santander suddenly locked its bank account.

Michelle Langan, chief executive of the Liverpool-based Paper Cup Project, said the problems began in September after she contacted the bank to update the list of trustees who were account signatories.

Despite hours of phone calls with Santander staff ever since, she said she had only been told the account had been locked due to unspecified "missing paperwork".

Santander said it was reviewing Ms Langan's concerns.

"Obviously it's been a massive stress for me," Ms Langan said.

"It's been hanging over me all over Christmas, I've not been sleeping properly.

"I've been every day when I wake up thinking I've got to ring the bank to get this resolved."

Ms Langan said she had promised members of staff - who provide support for rough sleepers and who run the charity's coffee shop, Paper Cup Coffee - that they would be paid early, ahead of Christmas.

However she had to inform them she had no access to money in the charity's account.

Ultimately, she said she had to borrow money from her family to pay her employees at the end of December.

After asking for the names of signatories on the charity's account to be updated, Ms Langan insisted she had provided all of the paperwork requested by Santander.

She said six different call-handlers had been unable to clarify what documents were missing.

Ms Langan said things became more serious on 2 January when she was told a decision had been made on 17 December to "close the account as we have not heard from you".

"I expressed horror at the fact they were closing the account because no-one had told me this, she told the BBC.

"If we can't get access to our accounts I haven't got money to pay the bills and to pay the next set of wages at the end of this month - so we're in a really precarious situation."

Ms Langan said that while she was determined to keep going, she felt there was "immense pressure on me".

"It's quite reputationally damaging to the charity," she added.

A Santander spokesperson said: "We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused by the placing of a block on The Paper Cup Project's charity account.

"After carefully reviewing the account, we have removed the block and are working closely with Ms Langan to ensure all required information on the account is up to date."

UPDATE - Tuesday 7 January: Since this story was originally published on 5 January, Santander apologised to Ms Langan and said it had removed the block on the Paper Cup Project's bank account on 6 January.

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