Debt management

We are getting threating letters addressed to our clients by the office of a firm of solicitors (drydensfairfax) to whom HMRC has outsourced the task of debt collection.

The information on which the solicitors is acting is often out of date, resulting from a delay on the part of HMRC in informing the solicitors.  In a particular example the debt was settled in full on 15 March 2012 (duly acknowledged in online statements) and yet the solicitors have sent out a letter dated 02 May 2012 threatening dire consequences for continued non-payment.  Fortunately this is a Corporation Tax liability for a company of which we are the registered office and we were able to intercept the correspondence before the fan got contaminated by sewage.

The problem is compounded by the fact that agent authorities in place with HMRC are not handed down to the third party collection agencies, so we are unable to speak to them on behalf of our clients unless we misrepresent ourselves as actually being the taxpayers.

Being solicitors, one would hope that they are aware of exposure to criminal charges if they undertake a pattern of threatening attempts to collect a debt which is not due and which they ought to know is not due, by reason of sections 2 and 3 of the protection from harrassment act and section 40 of the administration of justice act.

Perhaps there has to be a delay of sorts in filtering updated information to the solicitors, but from the above experience the extent of the delay is unreasonable.

At the very least, in my opinion an agent authority in place with HMRC should be regarded as extended to outsourced companies acting on their behalf.