Disputed invoice from accountant - best course of action

mdavids

Hi all,

My retired dad recently received a tax rebate for 07/08 which he wasn't expecting. As far as we are aware, this is entirely down to HMRC going back over their records and many other people have had rebates for this period for the same reason. The letter stated that my dads accountant had also been informed of the rebate.

He wasn't working in 07/08 but came out of retirement in 2009/10 and for this period used a local accountant to sort out his books, then retired again and has made no further use of his services.

A couple of weeks after receiving the rebate he got an invoice from the accountant wanting £65 for work done in securing the tax rebate.

My dad replied stating that he hadn't employed his services for over 2 years, he didn't use this accountant for the period the rebate applies to and basically asking for clarification as to why the accountant believes he is entitled to this money.

The accountant replied with another invoice and a note saying that my dads comments "were noted"??????

We dont believe the accountant has done any work at all in getting my dad his money and is simply trying it on hoping he'll just pay up. My dad has no intention of paying anything and doesn't think the accountant has a leg to stand on if he tries to take it further.

Can anyone advise as to the best course of action?

Also what the accountant is likely to do next when he doesn't receive any money e.g. small claims, debt collectors, nasty letters etc.

Thanks for any help.

paddyrg

If they haven't acted for him in years and did no work in securing the cash, and you have told them so, the ball is back in their court.

If they are smart, they'll just let it drop I would have thought.

The only angle they may have is that unless they were de-appointed as his accountants with HMRC, then someone somewhere will have filed the info which will have cost time. Filing this refund from HMRC could be seen as a new instruction. But letting it drop in the circumstances is probably the better thing to do.

whitewing

You could have a read of the terms of business that your dad would have signed originally, in case anything there covers it.

Also if your accountant was a member of any institutes or similar, then you could call them for some background info.

mdavids

At the moment it seems the ball is in our court as we have received another invoice. The plan at the moment is to send another letter re-stating why we believe no money is owed but this has been tried once already and ignored.

Its the third invoice and I think another one with no explanation will be bordering on harrassment. Also I consider it a fraudulent attempt to obtain money and I'm wondering if its worth stating this in the next letter and threatening with trading standards and/or solicitors.

Can you explain more about de-appointing the accountants with HMRC? I'm not sure if this has been done and was unaware that it had to be.

fluffnutter

mdavids wrote: »

We dont believe the accountant has done any work at all in getting my dad his money and is simply trying it on hoping he'll just pay up. My dad has no intention of paying anything and doesn't think the accountant has a leg to stand on if he tries to take it further.

Can anyone advise as to the best course of action?

Also what the accountant is likely to do next when he doesn't receive any money e.g. small claims, debt collectors, nasty letters etc.

Thanks for any help.

I tend to agree with you re. your first point.

The best course of action? Personally I'd simply ignore the demands.

Re. your final question, the accountant could well send nasty letters (ignore), appoint debt collectors (ignore) or pursue via the small claims court (don't ignore - your dad should go and argue his case).

I suspect they'll not bother for the sake of £65. A few letters perhaps but then I expect they'll give up. Sounds like an opportunistic scam to me.

pinkshoes

If he paid the accountant in 2010 for the work done, then even if the accountant contacted tax office requesting the rebate, they were already paid for this work.

I would write one final letter stating that they worked for him from <date> until <date>, and that their bill of <£X> was paid. No further work has been requested, so no money is owed.

paddyrg

Write to HMRC with all the details of the taxpayer number, name, address etc and say xyz is no longer your representative or agent, or at least call them up and make sure you find the right person to write to.

As for the invoices, I'd be inclined to ignore them. Worst case is they'd take you to small claims court, and you'd have to pay the filing costs of £30-ish if the judge finds against you (which only the judge would know anyway, make a good case and you pay nothing). It's a pain to do to take someone to court over this, and considering it'll take up more than 30 mins of their time at £130/h (I assume it cannot have taken more than 30 mins to open and file a copy of a letter...) then it's a lot of grief for £65.

They may write some pompous letters, but you've made your position clear.

mdavids

paddyrg wrote: »

Write to HMRC with all the details of the taxpayer number, name, address etc and say xyz is no longer your representative or agent, or at least call them up and make sure you find the right person to write to.

As for the invoices, I'd be inclined to ignore them. Worst case is they'd take you to small claims court, and you'd have to pay the filing costs of £30-ish if the judge finds against you (which only the judge would know anyway, make a good case and you pay nothing). It's a pain to do to take someone to court over this, and considering it'll take up more than 30 mins of their time at £130/h (I assume it cannot have taken more than 30 mins to open and file a copy of a letter...) then it's a lot of grief for £65.

They may write some pompous letters, but you've made your position clear.

Thank you, I'll pass on your advice.

suited-aces

I'd imagine you could dispute the fee with their professional body, but do you know if they are still registered as your dad's tax agent? If so they might have got a copy of his notification and that could be the fee for dealing with it, however little work that took? I wouldn't automatically take the view that they're pulling a fast one.