Registered office at accountant's address, but they reject mail "Return to sender"

[Wanderer]

My company address is my accountant's office. I figure that a lot of people do this, it seems pretty reasonable because otherwise I get a whole load of bumpf from companies house and HMRC sent directly to me that I don't want to have to deal with. I want the accountant to deal with this stuff and pass anything relevant on to me.

Today they tell me "We do not forward mail received at our head office address to clients. We deal with letters from HMRC or Companies House but return all other mail to sender." WTF? My understanding was that a company's registered office was somewhere that people could serve important documents. Am I being unreasonable in expecting that they would actually read it before they reject it or does anyone here think it's reasonable to return it to sender, unopened?

The only reason I found out they were doing this was that I got a letter from the debt collectors. It was duly returned to sender but the debt collectors resent it and this time the accountant opened it. They said "This letter received from the debt collectors was not from Companies House or HMRC therefore we returned to sender." Seriously, I'm not making this tulip up.

I asked them how it could be that the debt (owed to Companies house) was referred to the debt collectors. They suggest that "This is obviously their way of dealing with outstanding debt". I'm surprised that Companies House would refer a debt to a debt collection agency without even telling me that I owed them money.

[Clare@InTouch]

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. We act as registered office for many of our clients, and Companies House/HMRC post gets dealt with, junk mail gets binned, anything else gets forwarded to the client. It's been that way in any accountancy firm I've worked for, to return mail to sender seems unfair to say the least.

[Greg@CapitalCity]

Whoa!! So they keep the penalty letters from Companies House to themselves, but send the debt collectors letters resulting from said unpaid penalty, back to sender?? Something feels wrong here.

[linles]

My company address is my accountant's office. I figure that a lot of people do this, it seems pretty reasonable because otherwise I get a whole load of bumpf from companies house and HMRC sent directly to me that I don't want to have to deal with. I want the accountant to deal with this stuff and pass anything relevant on to me.

Today they tell me "We do not forward mail received at our head office address to clients. We deal with letters from HMRC or Companies House but return all other mail to sender." WTF? My understanding was that a company's registered office was somewhere that people could serve important documents. Am I being unreasonable in expecting that they would actually read it before they reject it or does anyone here think it's reasonable to return it to sender, unopened?

The only reason I found out they were doing this was that I got a letter from the debt collectors. It was duly returned to sender but the debt collectors resent it and this time the accountant opened it. They said "This letter received from the debt collectors was not from Companies House or HMRC therefore we returned to sender." Seriously, I'm not making this tulip up.

I asked them how it could be that the debt (owed to Companies house) was referred to the debt collectors. They suggest that "This is obviously their way of dealing with outstanding debt". I'm surprised that Companies House would refer a debt to a debt collection agency without even telling me that I owed them money.

Most accountants will act as registered office if you ask them (often with a charge) but if it was not part of the agreement then I would expect them to forward on post a few times with the request that you change the registered address. As for companies house, they had probably already sent penalty notices and got them returned, so moved your account to the debt collectors

[Wanderer]

Most accountants will act as registered office if you ask them (often with a charge) but if it was not part of the agreement then I would expect them to forward on post a few times with the request that you change the registered address.

I see your point but this has been my accountant since the company was formed and this has been the only registered office the company has ever had. I also made it clear to them from the outset that I wanted them to be the registered office and they agreed that this was a service they offered and I could to this. If there was some problem with doing this then surely they would have told me?

The Companies Act states that "A company must at all times have a registered office to which all communications and notices may be addressed." Rejecting post sent to a company's registered address (unless they had already given the director fair warning to change the address or they were no longer acting as an accountant for the company) is a terminally stupid thing to do in my opinion.

I was under the impression that they would do as Clare@InTouch says, "Companies House/HMRC post gets dealt with, junk mail gets binned, anything else gets forwarded to the client" which sounds perfectly reasonable to me.