Anyone dealt with this firm of solicitors?

Hello all

We have a vulnerable client who has received an invoice from Drysdensfairfax Solicitors for an alleged Tax Credits overpayment even though we have had no acknowledgement to the appeal form sent in late 2013 - we know they have received it as we attached a TC689 with it and that is definitely logged on HMRC systems.

Intriguingly the solicitor won’t speak to us as ‘no consent’ and their invoice has no address just a telephone number. Is this normal HMRC practice to refer alleged debts to a third party for recovery?

We have tried a few of the direct lines we have but are being met with the ‘it’s not our piece of work, we can’t help you’ scenario and helpfully we have also been told ‘we are a very large organisation you know’............yes I actually did know that!!

All advice appreciated - thanks in advance.

Debt advisers come across Drydenfairfax reasonably often. It used to be Drydens, which presumably merged with Fairfax to obtain its current identity.

It does debt collection. I’m trying to remember if HMRC uses DF as a matter of course but I cannot recall.

In the past, I have dealt with them for consumer credit debt and they were unremarkable.

I’m pretty sure they were one of the HMRC debt collecting firms I saw on a list somewhere on HMRC site recently.

I’ve been involved with some cases where Tax Credit debts have been with collectors.  My approach has been to contact HMRC Debt Management Branch if I can’t get anywhere with the collector.  They must have a record of the case (& should have written to the claimant at least once before sending it to a collector).

In your case, if there is an outstanding appeal collection of the overpayment should be suspended anyway.  Note this does not apply if it is a dispute - only if an appeal has been submitted.

Yes, I’ve seen letters from the too and in my experience TCO is farming out debts nore regularly than they used to do.