would really appreciate any help or advise

[sas]

Hi, my father in law owes approximately £20-25,000 to the Inland Revenue and has had people visit his house when he was out and write down the reg no of cars parked outside his house etc.

He is self employed as a carpet fitter and has a mortgage on his house that he has bought from the council about 5 years ago, I am trying to find out any info which might help him sort this mess out.

He has contacted the IR but by all accounts, the lady he spoke to was of no help at all and was rather rude and nasty.

He lost his son a few years back and had to pay for the funeral too which has crippled him financially.

He also had a lot of problems trying to get hold of his accountant for months on end. I would really appreciate any help or advise for him on this.
Thanks in advance

[jpj]

Hi Sas

Welcome to the forum

I have a friend literally in the same boat. Her accountant died, they then looked into her tax affairs and found she owed a fortune in miscalculated tax. the tax man visited her house when only the kids were in, noted all her cars, computers,anything of value basically! they impounded the car and sold it, and she is now off to court.

I would say be careful ,as your father in laws accountant cant be that efficient if he isnt contactable for ages at a time!

You need to get some advice from say citizens advice on his situation but I personally would start looking into an IVA or BR , but it does depend how much equity he has in his house, if its over £20 to 25 grand he is not insolvent.

[MelanieGiles]

Is this his only debt? If so, the best way forward is to come to a repayment arrangement directly with HMRC and if they will not agree to that, then to give serious consideration to bankruptcy proceedings.

Regards, Melanie Giles, Insolvency Practitioner for over 20 years.

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[cr15py]

I work in the accountancy profession, and we do hear about these sorts of cases on a frequent basis. It seems that a few accountants go AWOL basically leaving their clients in the lurch. Some obviously have genuine reasons for not performing their duties (illness, etc) but I have known accountants who have just upped and left.

HMRC are quite open to debt repayment plans from what I have experienced, but the best policy with them is to be open about your situation, put forward a repayment plan and usually they will be OK with it.

[mikebdomain]

Hi Sas and welcome to the forum, your father has probably got quite a bit of equity in his property, due to the fact that he bought it from the council (I suspect under the right to buy scheme) that he could release, if there were no affordability issues as far as his mortgage is concerned.

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