Incompetant Accountant

[Emsyboo]

Me and my DH have our own business that has been running fairly successfully for around 12 months although incorporated 18 months ago.

My accountant has been completely incompetant and for the last year has not done simple tasks such as adding me as a director to my company, the annual return, completing necessary filing, setting up PAYE, our bookkeeping...etc the list goes on. It all came to a head when Companies house threatened to dissolve the company and one of our clients called to let us know we had been flagged as dissolved on a credit check.

As you can imagine this has caused us issues in winning new business, getting existing clients to pay and damaged our reputation as a professional company. We have spoken to another accountant who made us aware of other issues our accountant should have done but it will cost us a lot of money to sort the problems out and get our business sorted.

Not only was our accountant incompetant but he came round to my house and shouted at me in the street after we emailed him to request he get in touch about the issues our client raised. He drove off in his car leaving us in total shock at his unprofessionalism and the fact he was just leaving us completely in the lurch without the decency to sort out his own mistakes. I was left in tears as I am 6 months pregant and not surprisingly my BP shot up in my midwife appoinment 30 minutes after this incident!

I want to know if we have any way of recovering the money we will have to shell out to sort this and if we can prevent him from doing this again to another business I am very concerned that he is not fit to be responsible for peoples business accounts and other people will be put through the expense, stress and issues we are facing at the moment.

Does anyone know if we have any rights or if I can complain to someone about him, he is a company but as far as I know it is just him.

I thought I'd put it our there in case anyone has been in this situation or knew about what we could do?

Is he a member of a professional body? Check on his invoices/ letterhead, will probably quote his qualification. Then contact them to find out how to make a formal complaint.

Making a claim for damages through the Small Claims court is also worth looking at.

ISsue a claim in the small claims court for any monies - keep note of everything he should have done, conversations, how much you have paid him - get report from new accountant saying what should have been done and any extra expenses to put things right.

Contact institute of chartered accountants and see how you get on with them.

You can go on to Companies House and add yourself as a director - complete a form and send it back.

Im suprised though that you have let this go on for so long - you should have noticed earlier - as a director the buck stops with dh

Unfortunately this guy may well have no qualifications and no insurance so you may never get any money back, but your new accountant is probably best placed to advise you on this - have you checked that they are regulated by a professional body and seen their insurance?

If you want to CAT or email me (mr dot anchovy at mranchovy dot com) with the names of both the old and new accountants and the names they use for their practices I can check their credentials if you like.

Any properly-qualified accountant, whether cima, acca or aca should have professional indemnity insurance before practising on their own account. You would be able to claim against this.

You would also be able to complain to their professional body whether cima, acca or icaew (icas or icai if in scotland or ireland).