HMRC repayments not accepting Bank sort-code

I work in Payments and one of our clients has tried to set up their current account to receive VAT repayments using one of the "change bank account" online forms, but they're met with an error message saying that the sort-code can't accept HMRC repayments: "You need to enter different bank details as the sort code you entered cannot accept HMRC repayments" I'm assuming these are paid via Bacs Direct Credit so it shouldn't be an issue (as the sort-code *does* accept all Bacs transactions), so I'm expecting that the sort-code database on HMRC's side hasn't been updated recently. I'm trying to get in touch with someone on the payments operations (?) team at HMRC to help resolve it but it's proving tricky...

[Third party information removed - HMRC Admin]

Hi,

If you contact our VAT team we can refer this over to the team responsible for business bank accounts to resolve.

VAT: general enquiries

Thank you.

Thanks. I've tried a number of times to contact the VAT team — over the phone the agent said they couldn't speak to me as I wasn't the customer in question, and i've not been able to get past the chatbot to talk to an agent / member of the team over the online chat... Do you have any other suggestions? (or could you refer this thread to them?)

Hi. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I would recommend putting this in writing to us so that our Banking Team can resolve this.  Please write to : Variations Unit BT VAT HMRC BX9 1WR . Thank you .

 

I just wanted to provide a small update — HMRC have confirmed to one of our clients that this issue has now been fixed. Thanks for your help.