VAT Refund on service not provided

I recently paid £300+VAT (so £60 VAT) to a company for certification of building work I had done on my house. The company then went into liquidation and I am told by the liquidator that I may be refunded 3p-6p in the pound but only on the £300. Since no service was provided, can I claim a refund of the VAT I paid?

You can only reclaim VAT if your are i) VAT registered and ii) the VAT being reclaimed related wholly to a taxable business purpose. If you are VAT registered and the certification for building work is directly in relation to your business activities (ie, if you are a property developer and you are building new dwellings and you paid £300+VAT for this certification), then the input tax should be recoverable, subject to normal VAT rules (partial exemption, etc)....but you mention the certification was for your own house, so it may not have been recoverable anyway as a house has a dual personal/business purpose (if working from home), so VAT would only be partially recoverable anyway. If you are not VAT registered or not a business, you cannot reclaim VAT. This then becomes a legal dispute between you and the supplier and their liquidator.

Hi Jim1782,
There would be no process by which you could request this as a reclaim from HMRC unfortunately.
You would need to take this up with the insolvency practitioner
Thank you