Fee disputes

A fee dispute with an adviser comes down to one of five questions: the amount of the fee, what it was a percentage of, whether it is still due after the claim was reduced, charges for work you did not expect to pay for, or what is owed on ending the engagement. Each of those is answered, well or badly, by the engagement letter. The letter is where to start.

Start with the letter

Find the clause the fee is charged under and read it slowly. The fee basis clause and the definition of the benefit decide disputes about amount. The refund clause decides disputes after a reduction. The termination clause decides disputes about leaving. Write down, in one sentence each, what you think the clause says and what the adviser thinks it says. The difference can be in one word, and seeing it narrows the argument.

Put it in writing

Ask the adviser for the calculation behind the invoice, by reference to the clause. Then set out your own reading and the figure you believe is due, and propose a way to settle the difference: a meeting, a third person both sides trust, or a timetable for settling the agreed and disputed parts that you have taken advice on. Keep every message short, polite and free of accusations, however you feel. The written record is what any later process will read.

Before you withhold anything

Withholding a fee can have consequences under the contract, and it can turn a disagreement about one invoice into a dispute about the whole engagement, your records and any claim in progress. Take advice before you withhold any part of a fee. Where part of an invoice is agreed and part is not, ask your lawyer or accountant what to do about the agreed part while the rest is discussed, and take advice before you decide what to pay. This page does not advise you to withhold a fee in any situation.

If you cannot agree

Advice from a lawyer or your accountant on the contract is the first step. Where the adviser belongs to a professional body, that body may have a complaints process, but the bodies checked for this site (ICAEW, the Taxation Disciplinary Board and ISCA) say they do not take fee disputes; in Australia the Tax Practitioners Board's form does list disagreement over a fee. The complaints page describes the route in general terms. Formal routes such as mediation, arbitration or a court differ by country and are a matter for your lawyer. Whatever you do, keep paying attention to the claim itself: a fee dispute does not change what the tax authority expects from you or when.

Read next

• Switching advisers and getting independent advice
• The question: what happens to the fee if the claim is reduced?
• The script: requesting your records