Switched Accountant - Old Accountant Problems

[jsock]

Morning,

I run my own Ltd, and switched accountants at the end of last financial year last July, due to my previous accountant being, quite frankly, rubbish.

Since the switch my old accountant is ignoring all communication (not massively surprising as he did that whilst I was paying him) but he's still to deliver my company year end accounts and personal tax for 15/16 for which he has already been paid.

Assuming I'm unlikely to ever hear from the guy again do I have any effective recourse to somehow claw back the money paid, or should I just suck it up and move on?

Cheers

[Louisa@AardvarkAccounting]

You've always got the option of going to the professional body (if your previous accountant is qualified) and reporting them

However if you don't hear anything at all, you don't want your accounts or self assessment to be late. As it will be worse if the penalties start mounting up for late submission. As you might not then be able to claim these back from your previous accountant and that will fall on your shoulders.

So you might have to suck it up initially... Then you can continue to hound your previous accountant and hope to get a response!

[Neil@Intouch]

I assume the new Accountant has sent a professional clearance letter to the old Accountant and all fees have been paid up to the date to the old Accountant for the service left outstanding.

Assuming yes to the above there is a professional obligation to hand the requested and required documents across in a timely manner to ensure future filings aren't late i.e. Quarterly VAT returns or RTI submissions.

The other option is to see if the new Accountant is able to pick up the company accounts if you have all the information. Has the previous Accountant given you a timescale of when this will be completed?

[northernladuk]

I had exactly this and no, you'll probably not hear a dickie bird. My new accountant was very good helping me sort the previous years for my records and get back on the straight and narrow so bar a couple of touchy VM's I didn't bother taking it any further.

[jsock]

Thanks for the comments.

To come back on a couple of the points raised, all the necessaries were handed over to my new accountant with no issues at time of transition and I'm fully paid up with the guy.

So from that point of view there's nothing to stop me getting my new accountant to draw up my accounts etc, just the fact I begrudge having to pay for it a second time.

But from what I read here, this isnt' that unusual.

The other thing that does occur to me is given how bad his service got last year, I would imagine I am by no means the only person to have switched recently, and if he's pulling the same stunt with everyone then at an aggregate level then it could begin to look quite "fraudy"...

[Michael at BI Accountancy]

To come back on a couple of the points raised, all the necessaries were handed over to my new accountant with no issues at time of transition and I'm fully paid up with the guy

As others have said, find out the professional body they are operating under and report them.