Tax accountant advice

[Goodmum1234]

Please could you help with the following... we once had a small business and were VAT registered until 2019. In 2018 we bought a vehicle and received the vat back by way of a cheque but never cashed it as we were going to deregister. We lost the cheque then found it and sent it to our accountants explaining. The accountant has helped us to deregister for vat.
We thought the matter was over.
We have received a letter from hmrc for the amount that the cheque was for with 30 days to pay (Just received letter late so in 10 days). It does say we can appeal which we obviously will as we never cashed the cheque.
Husband reckons we need to pay and then claim back or things will get nasty with them..interest etc. Legal issues.
What would you do? We have the money as we are doing up a bathroom so have savings.
Are we likely to get money back eventually? Our accountants have evidence and surely hmrc can check account to see it was never taken??

Thank you for any help

Anyone 🙏🏽

To clarify, you never cashed the cheque so never accessed the money?

That’s correct. Never accessed any money, just sent the cheque back to the accountants.

Bump

If I were you I would call HMRC directly (not via your accountant) and explain that you didn’t cash the cheque and therefore haven’t received the funds. You shouldn’t pay them back if you haven’t cashed the cheque. Generally speaking they’re quite reasonable.

Thank you for this

Good luck! Let me / us know how it goes.