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recommending a VAT reclaim company?


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Hi everyone

Will be needing a company to reclaim VAT payments on our completed DIY new build (BC will sign off in about a month)

I'm not great with paperwork, so... idea is to drop off a box of receipts... And wait for cheque! B|

 

Prefer to use someone in Kent if poss (not keen on sending paperwork through post!)

 

;)Any recommendations welcome

 

 

 

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Just now, Grosey said:

Didn’t even know such a company existed, or is it just a standard accountant? What sort of fee would they charge?

I googled and found specialists (so called) offering services from  £235+?

Not sure if 'standard' Is going to cut itO.o

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If you have your receipts in date order it's mostly a typing exercise. Know anyone that can use excel?

 

The main concern for me was what happens if the claim gets lost?  It's hard to get insurance to cover it.

Edited by Temp
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13 minutes ago, Temp said:

If you have your receipts in date order it's mostly a typing exercise. Know anyone that can use excel?

 

The main concern for me was what happens if the claim gets lost?  It's hard to get insurance to cover it.

I did my own submission based on excel. I already had my invoices in order but if is still many hours of work to note it, check the invoice, do currency conversion and cross reference each invoice. You also need to be clear about what is claimable.

 

So can understand why it would be worth paying someone when you have a lot on already. But the hard work of finding every invoice e.g. hard copy, email copy etc still remains with you.

 

You can guard against loss by a trip to the library and photocopy it all.

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As mentioned above the hardest part is finding all the invoices. Once you have them it's just a matter of putting them in order and filling out the form. I just used the form the send out rather than an excel document. I put every thing in knowing that  I couldn't claim for and let them sort it out.

From start to finish it was a few hours work.

I scanned each invoice incase they got lost in the post and sent it recorded delivery.

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I did my own last time. Filling in the list of items and submitting invoices is the easy, if time consuming bit.

 

It's the daft questions on the form, like how many cubic metres of timber did you use?  Has anyone had a claim rejected because they used too many or too few cubic metres of wood?  I did a VERY rough calculation just to put a figure in the box and filed it under the "stupid question" category.

 

There were a whole host including how many litres of paint etc.

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11 minutes ago, ProDave said:

It's the daft questions on the form, like how many cubic metres of timber did you use?  Has anyone had a claim rejected because they used too many or too few cubic metres of wood?  I did a VERY rough calculation just to put a figure in the box and filed it under the "stupid question" category.

 

There were a whole host including how many litres of paint etc.

Hmmm. Has the form changed since march? I did not have any of these, just questions to check my eligibility for a reclaim.

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6 minutes ago, Stones said:

£235 + ?  Tempted to set up a business to do this...

 

 

Me too.  The hardest part of the job isn't submitting the claim, that's dead easy, apart from the worry of losing receipts in the post.  The hard part is the tedious job of compiling all the receipts, and as far as I can see, no reclaim service can do this bit.  Once you have all the receipts in an orderly pile (or piles) it's just a couple of hours of tedious typing to put the details into the spreadsheet.  Here's a copy of the spreadsheet copy of the HMRC form that I used, and which HMRC accepted without question: http://www.mayfly.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/VAT Claim Form 431 - Blank.xls

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Without wanting to steel the OP's thread, I have a question:

 

Do individual invoices need splitting out item by item? So for example if I have an invoice which has both timber and concrete blocks, is this two lines on the sheet? 

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10 hours ago, DH202020 said:

Prefer to use someone in Kent if poss (not keen on sending paperwork through post!)

What part of Kent are you?

I could be interested in sorting 'em and putting them into @JSHarris 's .xls that he has kindly provided a link to for a few beer tokens.

I do minor book keeping for a few people, I'm not professional, oops I mean I am not a professional

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One thing to watch is that if you have a receipt that has a mix of claimable and non-claimable items, then you are best attaching it to a bit of paper and explaining with a note that you've removed the non-claimable item VAT.  I stapled all the till receipts I had to sheets of A4, and some of these had things like tools as well as materials on them.  The tool VAT was not claimable, but the materials VAT was.  Also, stapling till receipts to a sheet of A4 makes it a lot easier to keep everything in neat piles.

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On 10/7/2017 at 01:11, readiescards said:

Please!

 

Depends if market forces a.k.a.@Plumbersmateuk results in the fee dropping down to only a few beer tokens!  In all seriousness, I am giving this a lot of thought.

 

Like most forms, in of itself it's not especially complicated, but is time consuming and tedious, and the more receipts you have the more time consuming it becomes (hence the scale of fees that seem to be applied).

 

As with other aspects of self build you have to weigh up whether you value your time as equal to or greater than any fee, and that consideration may well be different to your normal assessment of such circumstances depending on how exhausting you have found the self build process to be.

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On 10/7/2017 at 09:20, Stones said:

Depends if market forces a.k.a.@Plumbersmateuk results in the fee dropping down to only a few beer tokens!  In all seriousness, I am giving this a lot of thought.

 

Due to my circumstances I am quite happy to spend time that I do have for a small remuneration, hence quite a few small jobs (couldn't get a big job, too old)

 

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1 hour ago, Plumbersmateuk said:

Due to my circumstances I am quite happy to spend time that I do have for a small remuneration, hence quite a few small jobs (couldn't get a big job to old)

 

 

I'm in much the same boat.  By accident I fell into doing consulting work, mainly for insurance companies, as an expert witness (although it's exceptionally rare for any case to get to court now).  From time to time I get a consulting job to do, and find it quite therapeutic to do something different for a few days, with the bonus of being paid for it.  There are times when jobs have taken me off the build, but then that's really down to the fact that this sort of consultancy pays rather well, and I can earn more in a few days of consulting work than I get from my pension in a month.

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1 hour ago, Plumbersmateuk said:

Due to my circumstances I am quite happy to spend time that I do have for a small remuneration, hence quite a few small jobs (couldn't get a big job to old)

 

 

+1, the added advantage being those of us in this kind of position don't / won't have the same kind of overheads (one assumes) as those professionals advertising this kind of service. 

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3 hours ago, Stones said:

Depends if market forces a.k.a.@Plumbersmateuk results in the fee dropping down to only a few beer tokens!  In all seriousness, I am giving this a lot of thought.

 

 

Well let us know - would be looking for full service from cataloguing receipts to chasing up reclaim payment. Mostly building merchant receipts. PM what you are thinking if you wish. 

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15 minutes ago, readiescards said:

 

Well let us know - would be looking for full service from cataloguing receipts to chasing up reclaim payment. Mostly building merchant receipts. PM what you are thinking if you wish. 

OK I have most of the documents here so I will give them a good read over the weekend and PM you

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4 hours ago, readiescards said:

 

Well let us know - would be looking for full service from cataloguing receipts to chasing up reclaim payment. Mostly building merchant receipts. PM what you are thinking if you wish. 

 

PM'd you.

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