Dispute over accountancy firm's fees

The Client

An accountancy firm.

Value of Dispute

£100,000

The Commercial Dispute

An accountancy firm (the “Claimant”) was engaged by a professional couple (the ‘Defendant”) to assist with VAT matters concerning their substantial portfolio of residential and commercial properties.

Later on in their working relationship, the Defendant requested the Claimant to assist with an investigation that had been launched by HMRC’s fraud investigation unit, as well as a broader review of its tax affairs.

However, a dispute arose regarding the Claimant’s fees, and the Defendant terminated the arrangement with a significant amount of the Claimant’s fees left unpaid. The Claimant sought to engage in dialogue with the other side’s solicitors, but were unable to come to any agreement on their outstanding fees. 

The Defendant argued that the Claimant was not entitled to any further fees on various grounds. In particular, they contested that the Claimant had failed to provide its services at a reasonable cost, and argued that a reasonable cost for the services the Claimant provided was £7,500 – which they’d already paid. 

How Escalate Resolved – Services Used

Escalate agreed to fund the case after the Claimant had already engaged in dialogue with the defendant for over 2 years, without any success. Court Proceedings were issued and despite Escalate making numerous offers to the Defendant and engaging in mediation, no agreement was reached. 

Our case was eventually successful, following a two-day trial in which the Claimant and Escalate beat their Part 36 offer and recovered in excess of £100,000 from the Defendant.