Recovering funds from Bona Vacantia

[FANGOL92]

Got most of the money back!

True.
At least you had the guts to come on and discuss, it may help others make the right decision, in the future.

Thought I'd let people know, in case anyone else is in the same situation, it is worth making the claim as I got my money back minus the legal fees of £350... so £750 back. Still lost 350 but doesn't feel quite so bad as £1000!

[jamesbrown]

Some info. here about discretionary grants, which apply when administrative restoration is not an option. This sounds like the cheapest/simplest route to me, but there's no route that won't cost you something. Consider it a **** ** tax.

[MrMarkyMark]

It certainly was and hindsight is a wonderful thing...

True.
At least you had the guts to come on and discuss, it may help others make the right decision, in the future.

[FANGOL92]

Sounds like that was completely the wrong decision then. Hence why people engage and pay for the proper "help" with this.

It certainly was and hindsight is a wonderful thing...

[FANGOL92]

The mistake here (as you know) is closing your business banking account before the business is struck off by Companies House. The fact is once your Company is struck off, your bank contacts you and informs you the a/c is frozen and anything that is in it, will be forwarded to HM Treasury. Having closed down (legally, and cleanly) 2 companies over the years as they were no longer required, I am not entirely sure if your company is now "struck" off that your are entitled to this money back. Its your old COMPANIES money not yours personally. (I stand to be corrected if wrong as I am no expert)

You may well have to take this one on the chin.

The really annoying thing is if I'd kept the bank account open the money would have been paid back to me before company closure and I would have transferred to my personal bank account. Also if HMRC had not taken weeks to respond I would have got the money into my own account as they told me to send personal bank account details but it took them 2 months to do this!

[Yonmons]

Sounds like that was completely the wrong decision then. Hence why people engage and pay for the proper "help" with this.

The mistake here (as you know) is closing your business banking account before the business is struck off by Companies House. The fact is once your Company is struck off, your bank contacts you and informs you the a/c is frozen and anything that is in it, will be forwarded to HM Treasury. Having closed down (legally, and cleanly) 2 companies over the years as they were no longer required, I am not entirely sure if your company is now "struck" off that your are entitled to this money back. Its your old COMPANIES money not yours personally. (I stand to be corrected if wrong as I am no expert)

You may well have to take this one on the chin.

[MrMarkyMark]

Unfortunately I followed most of the closure process myself as my acccountant was going to charge me £600 despite being inexperienced and having not closed a company down before. As she didn't fully understand the process I decided to do it myself. The one piece of advice she gave me about my bank account needing to be dormant was completely wrong.

Sounds like that was completely the wrong decision then. Hence why people engage and pay for the proper "help" with this.

[FANGOL92]

If this was your accountants mistake why don't you contact them and suggest they either re-open the company at their cost or just demand they pay it to you directly?

Unfortunately I followed most of the closure process myself as my acccountant was going to charge me £600 despite being inexperienced and having not closed a company down before. As she didn't fully understand the process I decided to do it myself. The one piece of advice she gave me about my bank account needing to be dormant was completely wrong.

[FANGOL92]

So at best you're going to get 700 quid back by the time you've paid to have the money paid back to you. Not worth it.

Myself I think there's a better chance of telling and proving HMRC incompetence and, getting them to paying you the £1030 only this time into your account.

Hi I guess if I try to claim the money without restoring the company it's no cost to me as I'm assuming they only take the 300 from any money that's paid back. I tried the HMRC incompetence route, they didn't answer any of my points on my first complaint. My second complaint the actually listed the dates they'd written to me but chose to ignore the times their idiot staff had wrongly advised me on the phone. Useless idiots!

[northernladuk]

If this was your accountants mistake why don't you contact them and suggest they either re-open the company at their cost or just demand they pay it to you directly?

[BolshieBastard]

So at best you're going to get 700 quid back by the time you've paid to have the money paid back to you. Not worth it.

Myself I think there's a better chance of telling and proving HMRC incompetence and, getting them to paying you the £1030 only this time into your account.

[FANGOL92]

Hope someone can help advise on the best course of action with this one. I was contracting for a couple of years before I took on a permanent job that was paying the same as my contract rate so I went permanent. I started the process of closing down my company once I started my new job.

Everything seemed to be fine with the closure process, I requested my company to be struck off in in Feb 2015 but then several weeks later I had a letter from HMRC telling me that I had overpaid my VAT by £1030. By this time I had already closed my business bank account as my accountant had told me (wrongly I think) that it had to be dormant for 3 months for the company to be dissolved. I contacted the VAT case finalisation team and asked if the cheque could be issued to my personal account. A period of weeks passed before I got any response and was then told my request was being looked at by an assessor. Then I found out they had ignored my request and tried to automatically debit the money into my business bank account which failed as it was closed.

I spoke to them again and was told to send evidence of my business address and a copy of my personal bank account paying in book. I did as requested. Through a series of delays it was now mid-May and at this time I was told that my company was now closed therefore the outstanding funds would be tranferred to the crown.

Although I know as Director it was my responsibility to ensure all activities were closed down before closing the company I had no idea that I was in credit with the VAT and I feel that if the HMRC had responded within acceptable timeframes I would not have lost the money to the crown.

So the question! I understand if a company has been dissolved and there are funds outstanding it is possible to undertake administrative restoration accompanied by a letter from the treasury solicitor. And once the company is restored the funds are transferred back. But the way I read the rules is that you cannot apply for administrative restoration if you voluntarily dissolved the company:-

"You can apply if:

you were a director or shareholder
the company was trading until it was struck off
you didn’t voluntarily apply to have your company struck off"

Am I interpreting this correctly? If so I understand I have two options

1. Restore the company via courts (appears to cost £300-400)
2. Apply for a discretionary payment from the treasury solicitor without restoring the company.

I wondered if anyone has any experience of this and if so what is the likelihood of getting my money back without restoration (minus £300 Treasury Solicitor costs). If I take this approach it would be using a form DG2 and with the reason "It would otherwise be unreasonable or unconscionable for the Crown to keep the assets"

Or would I be better off restoring the company via the courts?

If anyone has any experience of the best approach I'd be grateful for your thoughts.