Huge late filing penalty from 2019 - Can anyone advise me please.

Vixmag82

Hi

I was living abroad from july 2016 to july 2018 and i was renting out my UK property during this time. I was filling in my tax returns and sending them paper ones as required. I moved back to the UK and back into my house in the July of 2018. I filled in a paper tax return for the tax year april 2018-april 2019 and sent it off in July/August 2019 (had to be paper). As I only earned around £500 that tax year in total in the UK from the rent i knew I owed no tax. I wasn't even sure I needed to file a return because it was below the £1000 theshold but I did anyway.  

I didn't hear anything back from HMRC so assumed all was fine as I owed no tax anyway. Then in Sept 2019 I moved into my parents house up north and sold my house. i updated the address on HMRC government gateway system to my parents one. Still didn't hear anything. I was employed and on PAYE  and not self employed or renting ay property out so I forgot about it. Never received any letter so thought it was all fine. Then today .......nearly 3 years on I received a letter forwarded to me by the new owners of my old house. The letter was passed to my old neighbour who i have recently got back  in touch with. It was from HMRC and it was a late filing penalty fee for over £2300. I cannot get though on the phone or on the online chat today being the busiest time of the year. How can i be charged that much for not filing a form that i did post and why are the letters being sent to my old address when I have updated the address and it is on the system ? I am really worried. I have 3 kids and a house to pay for. No extra money at the end of the month and they have been adding on £300 a month for over a year. How can they let it accumulate this high? Without checking the address? Please has anyone got any advise until I can get through to them?   

Thanks

whitewitch21

The first thing to do is appeal against the penalties. You can write a letter or download sa370 from internet. Give as much detail as possible and dates. Explain you genuinely thought all returns had been filed, you kept hmrc up to date with changes of address and did not receive any correspondence. 
Just one thought, did you sign up for paperless contact as you would get email alerts to online messages rather than paper letters? HMRC consider statements and penalty notices etc as delivered even if you didn't read them. Good luck!