Companies House late filing penalty appeal

Companies House late filing penalty appeal

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The father of all four of the directors of a company has recently died after a long (several months) and distressing illness. They are appealling against a late filing penalty for filing the accounts just under 3 months late; the accounts have now been filed recently, about 3 weeks after he died. Do you have any advice about how I should draft the appeal letter?

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PAH Accounting Devizes Wiltshire
By Phil Hendy
19th Sep 2011 16:19

Harsh but fair

I know this will sound cruel but I really don't think there are any genuine grounds for appeal.

You could have asked for an extension prior to the filing deadlines. There is 9 months in which to file. There are four directors, surely one of them could have got it sorted.

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By The Innkeeper
19th Sep 2011 16:22

Agree with Phil

Regretably. If you write before the filing deadline you might ,given the scenario, ypu might have been given an extension.

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By taxhound
19th Sep 2011 18:16

You can try but...

I asked for an extension when the sole director of a company died just before the filing deadline.  CH very graciously gave his wife a whole extra month to file the accounts - just what she needed to be focusing on when her husband had died totally unexpectedly, leaving her with 4 children.

They have no compassion there.

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By Steve McQueen
20th Sep 2011 13:53

In my experiance...

...CH will not accept any appeals on any grounds despite what their guidance may claim.

If you have good grounds and are willing to fight in Court, you may win (I did 2 and lost about 6 times), but from the facts you have stated, I don't see how you have a case.

Steve

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By Cloudcounter
20th Sep 2011 20:08

Little chance

Are you saying that all four directors neglected every aspect of the business during their father's illness?  That they didn't deal with sales, VAT returns, wages, you name it?  The answer to that is almost certainly no, they didn't neglect those areas.  So as I see it the chance of a successful appeal for neglecting to file the accounts is about zero

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