Our accountant - do we report her to the police?

[Spaceman]

This is a wwyd.

We have used the same accountant to do our books for three yrs. She is unprofessional but always gets us a good tax return so we have stuck with her. We know she has a house in Spain and stays there a lot. We visited her in June to give her our receipts and we know from the tax office that she has processed our rebates. That was in august. The tax office has paid two grand odd into her account, which she now owes us. That payment was made to her in august as well. Despite numerous efforts we cannot get hold of her. Her number in Spain and in the uk just keeps ringing. My dh has been and knocked on her door twice. Nothing.

At what point do we report her? Or should we carry on waiting in the belief that we wouldn't worry so much if weren't so desperate for the cash??

It should be noted that normally she would call us back eventually. Over and above owing us money, I'm a bit concerned about her well-being. Oh. And we don't know anyone else this year that has used her.

Does she have neighbours you could ask? Or contact her professional association to check her contact details? It doesn't sound great tbh - whatever happens, I'd be thinking about a new accountant for next year...

Does she always get any refunds paid to her or is this unusual ? How long have you been trying to track her down and is it unusual to not be able to get hold of her like this ?

It's definitely very unprofessional - have you tried Googling her name to see if there is anything on the net that might help find her ?

When you say 'unprofessional' do you mean she is not affiliated to a professional body? Is she unqualified? If you've made reasonable attempts to get in touch then I would contact the police.

Thanks posters. I know it sounds bad but we didn't check her out because some of dhs colleagues used her and were happy. But since then dh has moved on and has lost touch with them do we don't know if they are going thru the same. There were never really any probs as far as we could see. However, these were construction workers and so long as she got them the money at some point they were happy. I on the other hand disliked her as she was scruffy (wore clothes she had been sunbathing in during our meeting, which was not a pretty sight) and referred to my dcs as 'the brats' (of course she had never met them) . That did pee me off though. She also never returns our paperwork from previous years, which I think is bad. After an initial mtg it was unlikely we'd hear from her again until the next yr. No updates. No nothing. She'd just taker our receipts and that'd be it until we heard from the tax office. Sloppy. But this! She's got thousands of pounds of our money sitting in her account grr.

I think you should write to her. and if she doesn't reply, you should consider getting a solicitor to write to her.

My spidey-sense is tingling here!

This sounds familiar to me. It happened to my DHs friend who is a plumber. He complained to the guy's professional body and called the police, but AFAIK he never got any of the money back, sorry.

She does sound unprofessional. Have you tried all means of getting hold of her? Mobile, email, voicemail? I would also try neighbours to find out where she could be. If no response then yes I would go to the police.

I hope you get your money back.

I agree - get a legal letter sent to her (I would also include that you want your paperwork relating to prior years returned as you need to keep VAT receipts and accounting records for 6 years iirc)

My dh has tried to call her many, many times. We don't have her email. it ain't looking good is it?

Could you talk to the tax office and make sure that they have on record that they should send any further payments to you rather than her in case any other payments are due in the mean time.

Might also be worth asking for advice from them on what is normal in these situations - they might be able to flag up her other clients and see if anybody else is having a problem or if she has disappeared off their radar and not sent anything in for anybody else etc... even if they can't tell you much they might be able to point you in the right direction.

I'd also report the fact that she is holding your paperwork despite having requested it back, in case they ever ask you for it, so they don't think that you are hiding something from them when you can't produce it.

would also look into tracking her down online (google, facebook etc) and the other person you knew that used her - just to see what they say.

The amount that she has taken doesn't sound huge - it's annoying for you obviously but it's not like she has taken £2million and has disappeared off the face of the earth with enough to live off - £2K sounds a small amount to steal from somebody and risk screwing up your professional work income IYSWIM. sounds more like incompetence or cash flow problems - so here's hoping it turns up soon!

Hiya zip, thanks for the advice. The tax office is a good place to start. We recognise the fact that it's not a lot of money, but we considered the fact that twenty clients like us would be sizeable enough if you were desperate enough - or that she may have gone bankrupt and has just walked away from her life. Other than a dp, she doesn't have any other family members. So it may have been a flight situation.