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You will need to find out the correct account to send it back to. That could take some time. I would put it into the highest interest account you can find for safe keeping until you can be totally sure you know the safest process for returning it.
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Before I consider that, are there any internet lawyers who can advise if they're liable for their own negligence and is there any chance I'm not obliged to return the funds?
Fraid not. A claim in unjust enrichment on the basis of monies paid by mistake can be pursued even where the mistake arises as a result of the paying party's negligence.
Of course, if you have a claim for interest (say under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998) you could always deduct the interest you're owed from the 2k overpayment and just return the balance.
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IANAL but from accountancy work I've been told that keeping money that has been overpaid and you're aware of it is potentially notifiable under anti-money-laundering regulations.
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Have been overpaid (only 2 grand) by a client who left me about 30k in debt for most of last year.
https://www.gov.uk/late-commercial-payments-interest-debt-recovery/charging-interest-commercial-debt
The interest you can charge if another business is late paying for goods or a service is ‘statutory interest’ - this is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate for business to business transactions. You can’t claim statutory interest if there’s a different rate of interest in a contract.
Example
If your business were owed £1,000 and the Bank of England base rate were 0.5%:
the annual statutory interest on this would be £85 (1,000 x 0.085 = £85)
divide £85 by 365 to get the daily interest: 23p a day (85 / 365 = 0.23)
after 50 days this would be £11.50 (50 x 0.23 = 11.50)30,000 x 0.085 = £2550
£2k is about 286 days (41 weeks) -worth of statutory interest.
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https://www.gov.uk/late-commercial-payments-interest-debt-recovery/claim-debt-recovery-costs
You can also charge a business a fixed sum for the cost of recovering a late commercial payment on top of claiming interest from it.
The amount you’re allowed to charge depends on the amount of debt.
Amount of debt What you can charge
Up to £999.99 £40
£1,000 to £9,999.99 £70
£10,000 or more £100These amounts are set by late payment legislation.
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Have been overpaid (only 2 grand) by a client who left me about 30k in debt for most of last year. I am in absolutely no rush to pay them back or notify them of their error, though concede I'm happy to do so if they contact me and bring it to my attention.
Before I consider that, are there any internet lawyers who can advise if they're liable for their own negligence and is there any chance I'm not obliged to return the funds? My moral compass sits at zero degrees at the best of times. With these utter toads it's in the negative numbers. I'd be happy to donate it to charity. I just don't want to be of any benefit to these people in any way - assuming it doesn't provide me problems down the line.
Presuming that I can't just Arkell v. Pressdram them when the time comes?