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Hi Melanie, I am in a similar situation to yourself. I also do year end accounts and tax returns for a client that has recently tried to remortgage. I have not been asked to provide an accounting certificate (yet) but have been asked to provide business forecasts etc for the rest of the year. I have made sure that all my replys are on letter headed paper which clearly states my ICB qualifications etc. Another member suggested two ways of dealing with this situation.
1. Get a chartered accountant to sign off your accounts and tax return which will obviously incurr a charge.
or
2. Write a letter explaining to the mortgage company explaining your situation offering to supply copies of the relevant exam certificates (I am taking it for granted that you have the relevant exam passes to do this work), insurance certificates and ICB membership certificate.
Sending a copy of the tax return will not help as they will want this anyway. What they are asking for is proof that you are competent to do the accounts and the tax return. I do believe that there is a bit of the "old boy network" involved in this. I have for example taking a couple of our local banks to task over the fact that they will not recognise the ICB certification. Their reply is always that they are lending the money and they set the conditions of the loan so they can do as they please.
I do think that they ICB could work harder to raise our profile, as there are a lot of financial institutions that have never heard of us let alone recognise our qualifications.
One thing that I have started to do is to mention this situation when a take on a new client. I think honesty is the best policy, but clients do find it hard to take in that we are qualified but the qualifications are not recognisable where it matters. Sorry I can't be more positive, it's a really embarrasing siituation.
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