We put our vat claim in a week ago 

Just over 43k They have just contacted me to ask me to check my figures as they get it to £60 more 

Requested 6 receipts Then will pay it 

 

Hernia op in two hours Then 3 weeks taking it easy Hopefully paid out by then 

Wowzer! That is efficient. Hopefully we will be submitting ours in a years time.

 

Good luck with the op and enjoy the time off 🙂

5 hours ago, Eric said:

Wowzer! That is efficient. Hopefully we will be submitting ours in a years time.

 

Good luck with the op and enjoy the time off 🙂

Thank you the op went well I’m home and up on my feet 

20 hours ago, nod said:

Thank you the op went well I’m home and up on my feet 

Make sure you absolutely do feck all for the 3 weeks, as the body will recover so much better/quicker if you leave it alone to do so.

 

Same advice I had to follow with my Distal bicep tendon rupture.....11 months to recover from that.

19 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Make sure you absolutely do feck all for the 3 weeks, as the body will recover so much better/quicker if you leave it alone to do so.

 

Same advice I had to follow with my Distal bicep tendon rupture.....11 months to recover from that.

Thanks Nick 

Busy sitting in the garden now 

I’ve put it off for two years while we finished the build 

The surgeon has said I’m lucky not to come in as an emergency 

Probably should have had it sorted immediately 

Definitely won’t be riding a bike for a while 😁

17 minutes ago, nod said:

sitting in the garden now

 

Welcome to the Hernia repair club.  I expect they are all different but I had no side effects or long term discomfort or weakness.

 

Available for BH questions to keep your mind alert.

Here is one.

On your VAT reclaim were there any pro-forma invoices and were they accepted or require prof of payment or perhaps more than that?

1 minute ago, saveasteading said:

 

Welcome to the Hernia repair club.  I expect they are all different but I had no side effects or long term discomfort or weakness.

 

Available for BH questions to keep your mind alert.

Here is one.

On your VAT reclaim were there any pro-forma invoices and were they accepted or require prof of payment or perhaps more than that?

Thanks for that 

Pain not to bad Feels like I’ve been kicked in the goolys 

 

Yes there was several pro/forma invoices 

They haven’t really picked up on these 

They asked for six paper invoices 

House trusses garage attic trusses and posis joists 

Kitchen 

We purchased five large mirrors They require photos showing them fixed in place I’d built 6 fitted wardrobes also Same again there Photos showing them fixed in place 

I had a look for the £68 discrepancy It was a typo I’d made in the very first invoice 

 

I’ll Bob them an email with all the details and wait and see 

 

Our previous claim went through in about eight weeks So not going to bad for time now 

 

We’ve been in almost twelve months now Doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore 

These queries seem fair.  The sort of thing that could be fiddled. Forged/ different versions of invoices. Mirrors bought for somewhere else.

 

I had a VAT inspector sit opposite me for 3 days, as there was no other desk space. At the satisfactory conclusion he told me he was looking at our books for inconsistencies but also taking notes of subcontractors. He went off with several photocopies of their invoices, and was going to compare them to what these contractors were claiming.  ie often a contractor will pay some of the VAT due and use the rest for cash-flow, especially an unusually high sum as 'the vat people won't notice'.

the same inspector doesn't investigate them, but flags it, and files these invoices.

 

Perhaps an inspector has checked with your suppliers.

 

They are very fair 

We had Attic trusses on the workshop roof 

and they questioned why they had cost similar to the main house roof Which is three times the size 

I’ve explained that much of the house roof I built in loose rafters and highlighted the beams and 70 plus deep rafters 

On 08/07/2025 at 16:25, nod said:

 ...I’d built 6 fitted wardrobes also Same again there Photos showing them fixed in place

Were these the basic, single shelf in the middle affairs? Having looked into this recently I had decided the only wardrobes for which VAT could be reclaimed were more or less pointless. Ie bare plaster behind, (the rules mention wall must be visible behind), must be a single shelf and or rail (multiple shelves disqualify it) and it has to be between two walls so an end panel would also disqualify it. At that point, I figured that unless the house had been designed with the express intention of forming wardrobes like these then no VAT claim would be possible. Have I got this wrong?!

6 hours ago, MoDo said:

Were these the basic, single shelf in the middle affairs? Having looked into this recently I had decided the only wardrobes for which VAT could be reclaimed were more or less pointless. Ie bare plaster behind, (the rules mention wall must be visible behind), must be a single shelf and or rail (multiple shelves disqualify it) and it has to be between two walls so an end panel would also disqualify it. At that point, I figured that unless the house had been designed with the express intention of forming wardrobes like these then no VAT claim would be possible. Have I got this wrong?!

 

Just now, nod said:

 

Pretty much all like this 

The one in our office shelves a drawers Bedrooms shelves and rail kits 

 

Thanks for explaining your VAT reclaim, @nod.  It's good to know they don't enforce the silly wardrobe rule, although a different inspector may have taken a different view.

53 minutes ago, Tony L said:

Thanks for explaining your VAT reclaim, @nod.  It's good to know they don't enforce the silly wardrobe rule, although a different inspector may have taken a different view.

Our previous build showed them marked on the drawings 

Our recent build didn’t have any wardrobes shown and they still didn’t bother 

You did well. They can be a total pain in the butt about wardrobes. I got done once for £22k in vat, re wardrobes.

Thanks @nod sorry for not acknowledging earlier. I didn't get the notification for some reason. Could I ask where you got the wardrobes from? They look great. I've looked at Fittingly and a few other similar sites. But suspect a local joiner would be cheaper if I can get one to actually turn up and quote.

I built them out of plasterboard and skimmed and bought the doors to match the rest of the house from Howdens The inserts are from Amazon 

Thanks, that method probably helped your VAT claim too as individual components are easier to claim for as opposed to something HMRC might class as "furniture" which could be disallowed. Pretty sure doors of any sort are fine to claim for for example.