Accountant changing my registered address without consen
Discussion
Hi all
Im after a little advice if possible.
I am a director of a limited company and since its inception I have paid my accountant an annual fee for them to be used as the registered address with companies house mainly because I am in a regulated industry but also because I did not want my personal address to be in the public domain with the business registered to it.
. Late last year I asked for a breakdown of costs as I felt I was overpaying to be met with a very abrupt response saying as I do not value their services they no longer feel they should act for me.
It was agreed with the MD of the accountants by email that I would continue to use their registered address until I had made alternative arrangements with another accountants and changed my details with the relevant bodies. After signing a disengagement letter at their request in order to transfer my records to a new accountant I am in the process of transferring my accounts and arranging for the registered address to also be changed.
I received a call from an admin clark in the old accountants today to say we have some post for you to collect oh and by the way we notice we are atill your registered address so have taken it upon ourselves to change this with companies house to your home address (with no consent from me whatsover).
They are well aware ever since I started trading that I did not want my home address attached to the company and in the public domain for anyone to see.
The admin clerk in question was very apologetic and said she was not aware there was an agreement to continue to use the registered address until this was all sorted and took it upon herself to change it as she thought it would be easier as post would be sent directly to me!
I need to speak to them and the new accountant in the morning but in the mean time need to know if it has been processed by companies house (apparently its done been online this afternoon but a companies house search still shows the original address) can it then be removed?
I feel very angry about the whole situation and would like to know what, if any recourse I have to take it further, im not looking for any financial gain but feel they should be held responsible for it and would like any record with companies house of my personal address to be removed if possible.
Any thoughts?
Im after a little advice if possible.
I am a director of a limited company and since its inception I have paid my accountant an annual fee for them to be used as the registered address with companies house mainly because I am in a regulated industry but also because I did not want my personal address to be in the public domain with the business registered to it.
. Late last year I asked for a breakdown of costs as I felt I was overpaying to be met with a very abrupt response saying as I do not value their services they no longer feel they should act for me.
It was agreed with the MD of the accountants by email that I would continue to use their registered address until I had made alternative arrangements with another accountants and changed my details with the relevant bodies. After signing a disengagement letter at their request in order to transfer my records to a new accountant I am in the process of transferring my accounts and arranging for the registered address to also be changed.
I received a call from an admin clark in the old accountants today to say we have some post for you to collect oh and by the way we notice we are atill your registered address so have taken it upon ourselves to change this with companies house to your home address (with no consent from me whatsover).
They are well aware ever since I started trading that I did not want my home address attached to the company and in the public domain for anyone to see.
The admin clerk in question was very apologetic and said she was not aware there was an agreement to continue to use the registered address until this was all sorted and took it upon herself to change it as she thought it would be easier as post would be sent directly to me!
I need to speak to them and the new accountant in the morning but in the mean time need to know if it has been processed by companies house (apparently its done been online this afternoon but a companies house search still shows the original address) can it then be removed?
I feel very angry about the whole situation and would like to know what, if any recourse I have to take it further, im not looking for any financial gain but feel they should be held responsible for it and would like any record with companies house of my personal address to be removed if possible.
Any thoughts?
Newstuart said:
Hi all
Im after a little advice if possible.
I am a director of a limited company and since its inception I have paid my accountant an annual fee for them to be used as the registered address with companies house mainly because I am in a regulated industry but also because I did not want my personal address to be in the public domain with the business registered to it.
. Late last year I asked for a breakdown of costs as I felt I was overpaying to be met with a very abrupt response saying as I do not value their services they no longer feel they should act for me.
It was agreed with the MD of the accountants by email that I would continue to use their registered address until I had made alternative arrangements with another accountants and changed my details with the relevant bodies. After signing a disengagement letter at their request in order to transfer my records to a new accountant I am in the process of transferring my accounts and arranging for the registered address to also be changed.
I received a call from an admin clark in the old accountants today to say we have some post for you to collect oh and by the way we notice we are atill your registered address so have taken it upon ourselves to change this with companies house to your home address (with no consent from me whatsover).
They are well aware ever since I started trading that I did not want my home address attached to the company and in the public domain for anyone to see.
The admin clerk in question was very apologetic and said she was not aware there was an agreement to continue to use the registered address until this was all sorted and took it upon herself to change it as she thought it would be easier as post would be sent directly to me!
I need to speak to them and the new accountant in the morning but in the mean time need to know if it has been processed by companies house (apparently its done been online this afternoon but a companies house search still shows the original address) can it then be removed?
I feel very angry about the whole situation and would like to know what, if any recourse I have to take it further, im not looking for any financial gain but feel they should be held responsible for it and would like any record with companies house of my personal address to be removed if possible.
Any thoughts?
Not sure if I have missed it, but did you have some sort of signed agreement, with a time period for the change over to happen, with the previous accountant? Im after a little advice if possible.
I am a director of a limited company and since its inception I have paid my accountant an annual fee for them to be used as the registered address with companies house mainly because I am in a regulated industry but also because I did not want my personal address to be in the public domain with the business registered to it.
. Late last year I asked for a breakdown of costs as I felt I was overpaying to be met with a very abrupt response saying as I do not value their services they no longer feel they should act for me.
It was agreed with the MD of the accountants by email that I would continue to use their registered address until I had made alternative arrangements with another accountants and changed my details with the relevant bodies. After signing a disengagement letter at their request in order to transfer my records to a new accountant I am in the process of transferring my accounts and arranging for the registered address to also be changed.
I received a call from an admin clark in the old accountants today to say we have some post for you to collect oh and by the way we notice we are atill your registered address so have taken it upon ourselves to change this with companies house to your home address (with no consent from me whatsover).
They are well aware ever since I started trading that I did not want my home address attached to the company and in the public domain for anyone to see.
The admin clerk in question was very apologetic and said she was not aware there was an agreement to continue to use the registered address until this was all sorted and took it upon herself to change it as she thought it would be easier as post would be sent directly to me!
I need to speak to them and the new accountant in the morning but in the mean time need to know if it has been processed by companies house (apparently its done been online this afternoon but a companies house search still shows the original address) can it then be removed?
I feel very angry about the whole situation and would like to know what, if any recourse I have to take it further, im not looking for any financial gain but feel they should be held responsible for it and would like any record with companies house of my personal address to be removed if possible.
Any thoughts?
As regards recourse? what are you looking for, an apology, money, cost of putting right the perceived mistake?
Also, to avoid this issue in future, have you thought about renting a small office you can use as your registered address? you might be surprised by how little a room in a complex would cost.
Personally i'd speak to the original accountants MD and try and clear the air, as it seems neither of you is very happy about the parting.
Hi, when they advised to go elsehere I questiined the refistered address and have an email from the MD stating I can continue to use it until I have got apeverything sorted with the relevant bodies and new accountants. This was the end of November and I was asked to sign a disengagement letter a few days later as they said they needed this to pass my records to a new accountant.
They only released my details for the new accounts to be able to have an initial meeting with me the week before Christmas and I am Presently waiting for a contract from them to sign as well as confirmation I can use them as a registrred address. Until I have this I am not in a position to advise the regulation bodies.
With regards to the office, I am 100% mobile and visit clients so have no need whatsoever for an office.
In terms of what I want, I would like any records of my personal address to be removed from public records as I never gave consent for it to be there. I also feel that they have also acted very poorly and quite frankly feel they should be held accountable for it as I would expect to be if I had worked in such a way. I have no desire to gain financially from it.
They only released my details for the new accounts to be able to have an initial meeting with me the week before Christmas and I am Presently waiting for a contract from them to sign as well as confirmation I can use them as a registrred address. Until I have this I am not in a position to advise the regulation bodies.
With regards to the office, I am 100% mobile and visit clients so have no need whatsoever for an office.
In terms of what I want, I would like any records of my personal address to be removed from public records as I never gave consent for it to be there. I also feel that they have also acted very poorly and quite frankly feel they should be held accountable for it as I would expect to be if I had worked in such a way. I have no desire to gain financially from it.
Edited by Newstuart on Tuesday 3rd January 18:50
Edited by Newstuart on Tuesday 3rd January 18:56
Edited by Newstuart on Tuesday 3rd January 18:59
I can't help with your actual issue but if you're paying £200pa for a ROA there are savings to be made there. When I set my ltd co up with company-wizard.co.uk many years ago I didn't want to use my home address for the same reasons as you so took their ROA service as well and continue to use it to this day. https://www.companywizard.co.uk/support/help_regis... £70/pa which includes forwarding of HMRC letters. If you ask them nicely they will open and scan other proper correspondence and email it to you, so long as it's not marketing crap.
As a practising accountant, being asked for a breakdown of charges is a right pain in the neck and the work required to do that can sometimes cost the firm as much time as the original work - especially for smaller clients.
Luckilly, it rarely happens in my case. I always give a pretty detailed invoice showing the actual work I have done for the client over the year which seems to satisfy them. What I don't do is place beside each item of work carried out the number of hours spent on each area. and my fees are very reasonable - of course
Usually, if a client gets to the point of asking for detailed breakdowns, the trust between the client and the accountant has already been lost and it is best for the client to move on. I think the OP's previous accountant came to that conclusion too. Note - I am not agreeing with their subsequent behaviour regarding changing the Registered Office.
If I lose a client who has been using my office as their Registered Office, I expect the client to sort that out themselves pretty smartly - and they will get nagging reminders if it isn't happening quickly enough.
Luckilly, it rarely happens in my case. I always give a pretty detailed invoice showing the actual work I have done for the client over the year which seems to satisfy them. What I don't do is place beside each item of work carried out the number of hours spent on each area. and my fees are very reasonable - of course
Usually, if a client gets to the point of asking for detailed breakdowns, the trust between the client and the accountant has already been lost and it is best for the client to move on. I think the OP's previous accountant came to that conclusion too. Note - I am not agreeing with their subsequent behaviour regarding changing the Registered Office.
If I lose a client who has been using my office as their Registered Office, I expect the client to sort that out themselves pretty smartly - and they will get nagging reminders if it isn't happening quickly enough.
As his concern is related to use of address charges I read it as a request for a broad breakdown rather than an hour by hour list, i.e. £x for using them as registered address, £y for end of year accounts, £z for wages etc.
I periodically run through all business charges and double check them to ensure they're reasonable. Just because I want reassurance that I'm not being overcharged doesn't mean the end of the relationship. Blind faith in your accountant, or any other supplier, is a fools game. As I found out with my first accountant who was an absolute crook.
I periodically run through all business charges and double check them to ensure they're reasonable. Just because I want reassurance that I'm not being overcharged doesn't mean the end of the relationship. Blind faith in your accountant, or any other supplier, is a fools game. As I found out with my first accountant who was an absolute crook.
Edited by foxsasha on Wednesday 4th January 09:15
Thanks for the responses,
Firstly, I was not looking for a minute by minute breakdown of what they were charging me, just an overview as I was receiving numerous invoices from them every month and it was all adding up. I spoke to a colleague who is in a similar role and he advised he was paying around 50% of what I was. With this in mind and firmly believing that you get what you pay for with accountants I merely sent them an email explaining a colleague was paying significantly less and wanting to make a fair comparrison could they please let me have an approximate breakdown of my annual charges.
At this stage my complaint is not the question I may have "got their backs up" as someone has suggested, it is that they changed my registerted address with no consent whatsoever from myself after agreeing to allow me to use it until I confimed I had made arrangements elsewhere.
I can not make those arrangements without signing with another accouintant and could not do that without them fowarsing all of my information to them which only happened the week before Christmas. The new accountants are sending me a contract and confirming use of the registered address when they re-open this week so there is little I can do to speed it up at all.
Firstly, I was not looking for a minute by minute breakdown of what they were charging me, just an overview as I was receiving numerous invoices from them every month and it was all adding up. I spoke to a colleague who is in a similar role and he advised he was paying around 50% of what I was. With this in mind and firmly believing that you get what you pay for with accountants I merely sent them an email explaining a colleague was paying significantly less and wanting to make a fair comparrison could they please let me have an approximate breakdown of my annual charges.
At this stage my complaint is not the question I may have "got their backs up" as someone has suggested, it is that they changed my registerted address with no consent whatsoever from myself after agreeing to allow me to use it until I confimed I had made arrangements elsewhere.
I can not make those arrangements without signing with another accouintant and could not do that without them fowarsing all of my information to them which only happened the week before Christmas. The new accountants are sending me a contract and confirming use of the registered address when they re-open this week so there is little I can do to speed it up at all.
Edited by Newstuart on Wednesday 4th January 09:11
You can change your Registered Office yourself. There is no need whatsoever to have any accountant or any third party involved at all.
In fact, I much prefer my clients to make their own arrangements regarding Registered Offices. I will facilitate a client if they can give me a good case as to why they think that their accountant's office is the best place but on the whole I would prefer NOT to be the Registered Office for client companies.
Regarding a breakdown of fees, what happens is that a client usually says something along the lines of "Can I have a breakdown of my fees?". But they don't specify at this initial point what type of detail they want. That usually involves further communication between the client and the (usually soon to be ex) accountant.
So, the accountant has to perform extra work unbillable just to explain the work they did.
It's just a waste of time as far as the accountant is concerned so it's usually better for both parties to go their separate ways.
As I said, that has not really ever happened regarding my own clients but when I used to work as an employee for other firms of accountants these types of request did happen from time to time.
Usually, one of the partners would say to me or some other of staff - "Could you deal with this request, but don't spend any time on it". Which was a bit of an impossible task and very frustrating.
In fact, I much prefer my clients to make their own arrangements regarding Registered Offices. I will facilitate a client if they can give me a good case as to why they think that their accountant's office is the best place but on the whole I would prefer NOT to be the Registered Office for client companies.
Regarding a breakdown of fees, what happens is that a client usually says something along the lines of "Can I have a breakdown of my fees?". But they don't specify at this initial point what type of detail they want. That usually involves further communication between the client and the (usually soon to be ex) accountant.
So, the accountant has to perform extra work unbillable just to explain the work they did.
It's just a waste of time as far as the accountant is concerned so it's usually better for both parties to go their separate ways.
As I said, that has not really ever happened regarding my own clients but when I used to work as an employee for other firms of accountants these types of request did happen from time to time.
Usually, one of the partners would say to me or some other of staff - "Could you deal with this request, but don't spend any time on it". Which was a bit of an impossible task and very frustrating.
Newstuart said:
At this stage my complaint is not the question I may have "got their backs up" as someone has suggested, it is that they changed my registerted address with no consent whatsoever from myself after agreeing to allow me to use it until I confimed I had made arrangements elsewhere.
They've already accepted that it was a simple human error, due to miscommunication of the agreement you had in place, and with the primary intent of increasing convenience for you - and they've apologised for that.Newstuart said:
I received a call from an admin clark in the old accountants today to say we have some post for you to collect oh and by the way we notice we are atill your registered address so have taken it upon ourselves to change this with companies house to your home address (with no consent from me whatsover).
...
The admin clerk in question was very apologetic and said she was not aware there was an agreement to continue to use the registered address until this was all sorted and took it upon herself to change it as she thought it would be easier as post would be sent directly to me!
Are you suggesting that that is not the truth? What do you want to actually achieve here? If the change has already been submitted, it probably cannot be easily stopped and, once it's been processed, cannot be rescinded. But have you spoken to CoHo yet? mailto:enquiries@companies-house.gov.uk or 0303 1234 500. ...
The admin clerk in question was very apologetic and said she was not aware there was an agreement to continue to use the registered address until this was all sorted and took it upon herself to change it as she thought it would be easier as post would be sent directly to me!
Pause and think about what "damage" has actually occurred.
Your home address is not exactly a state secret.
Your directorship of the company is a matter of public record - what address is on that?
TooMany2cvs said:
Your home address is not exactly a state secret.
Your directorship of the company is a matter of public record - what address is on that?
Exactly, your home address is on file anyway as directors need to divulge this information on the register of directors. Save yourself some money and leave the registered address as your home address.Your directorship of the company is a matter of public record - what address is on that?
KevinCamaroSS said:
Exactly, your home address is on file anyway as directors need to divulge this information on the register of directors. Save yourself some money and leave the registered address as your home address.
The register of directors lists a service address which does not have to be your residential address. Companies House only disclose the service address and not the residential address.Newstuart said:
I spoke to a colleague who is in a similar role and he advised he was paying around 50% of what I was. With this in mind and firmly believing that you get what you pay for with accountants I merely sent them an email explaining a colleague was paying significantly less and wanting to make a fair comparrison could they please let me have an approximate breakdown of my annual charges.
Newstuart said:
At this stage my complaint is not the question I may have "got their backs up" as someone has suggested
You are now expecting them to do something about an issue which is a) an administrative error by a junior and b) something they can't reverse without a time machine. Not really sure what recompense you are after, I would just take it on the chin as one of those things and move on. Hardly the end of the world, is it?
You are already mentally filed as "former punter who doubted our charges, next". If you were them, would you spend any more time and money on you?
I have an accountant, who is also a mate, and he just quotes me an annual fee. He doesn't give me a discount, but he also doesn't get s
tty with me when I send him my books over Christmas with a week to go before my accounts filing deadline and all that kind of crap that every accountant has to deal with because their clients are sometimes not the most organised people. I have no idea what his hourly rate is out of that fee and couldn't give a flying one. If, as I have done in the past, I find an accountant's fee to be what I perceive to be uncompetitive, I have just moved on to another. I don't expect them to get into a bidding war in some kind of race to the bottom for the lowest fee. Edited by PurpleTurtle on Wednesday 4th January 11:17
Newstuart said:
Hi all and thanks for all the responses, clearly I feel more "wronged" by this than the general consensus on here and It appears nothing can be done to rectify the mistake so ill leave it at that.
I'd be knarked by the mistake and see nothing wrong in asking for clarification of charges but if nothing can be done then nothing can be done.plasticpig said:
KevinCamaroSS said:
Exactly, your home address is on file anyway as directors need to divulge this information on the register of directors. Save yourself some money and leave the registered address as your home address.
The register of directors lists a service address which does not have to be your residential address. Companies House only disclose the service address and not the residential address.Leave them multiple st reviews, slate them. I would not be happy either.
Secondly I'd contact companies house and inform them that an agent acted on your behalf, without consent. I've read that if you're renting you require the LL's approval prior to using that address as a reg office address - not sure whether that's covered by law or merely best practice but may provide some leverage.
In any case your post affirms my decision to limit third party involvement.
t reviews, slate them. I would not be happy either. Secondly I'd contact companies house and inform them that an agent acted on your behalf, without consent. I've read that if you're renting you require the LL's approval prior to using that address as a reg office address - not sure whether that's covered by law or merely best practice but may provide some leverage.
In any case your post affirms my decision to limit third party involvement.
KevinCamaroSS said:
plasticpig said:
KevinCamaroSS said:
Exactly, your home address is on file anyway as directors need to divulge this information on the register of directors. Save yourself some money and leave the registered address as your home address.
The register of directors lists a service address which does not have to be your residential address. Companies House only disclose the service address and not the residential address.Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff