Income Officer

required to maximise the rental income in line with policy and procedure. You will be responsible for a certain geographical area but will be expected to assist other team members where appropriate.
Key responsibilities:

• To effectively manage all rent accounts in association with management and/or care and support services, including visiting customers in their own homes, signposting to welfare benefit advice and debt management.
• To negotiate payment agreements after completing income and expenditures with customers making repayment plans, identifying where possible any gaps in benefit.
• To follow policies and procedures and fully utilise ICT to log a record of actions, agreements and conversations and maintain effective records to demonstrate a clear audit trail.
• To liaise effectively with customers and relevant organisations through writing, phone calls and face to face meetings to ensure debt issues are effectively resolved.
• Contribute to sign-up process including affordability assessments
• Maintain effective relationships with all internal departments and customers
• To ensure that appropriate legal action is taken to recover debt including application to court and representing the organisation in court. This could include eviction process and adhering to the pre-action protocol
• To build proactive partnerships with external agencies including Citizen Advice
• To provide performance information and participate in service reviews as required
• To ensure any safeguarding concerns reported immediately to the appropriate officer and where applicable social services

Person Specification:

• Good standard of education
• Experience in housing, ideally working in an income recovery role is desirable
• Experience of preparation and execution of possession action desirable
• Knowledge of pre-action protocol and its use is desirable
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Good organisational and time management skills
• Good IT skills (MS Office - Word, Excel, Outlook )
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Ability to negotiate with contractors and partner agencies
• General knowledge of the welfare benefit system beneficial
• Ability to recognise safeguarding issues
• Ability to engage with customers to make payment agreements
• Driving licence and own vehicle essential
• DBS Check will be required

The role is full time, Monday - Friday, 37 hours per week and will initially be for 3 - 6 month basis with a possibility of an extension