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Accountancy is weird. It's related to the law, but it's a separate thing. Legally, if someone pays you money by mistake, you are obliged to pay it back as and when they ask for it, but until then you just have to look after it for them and not spend it. After six years(1), it's yours.
(1) A topic of hot debate amongst lawyers, believe it or not. It might be six years from the date on which the person who made the mistaken payment learns of the mistake. This depends on the proper interpretation of the word 'mistake' in s. 32(1)(a) of the Limitation Act 1980. As you can imagine, I'm a real hit at parties with all this smooth lawyer talk.
Brommers
Hmm, as an accountant at one point the (ludicrously overkill) instruction going out to accountants from on high was that SARs had to be filed for businesses who were aware that they had been overpaid and hadn't made an effort to repay the amount.
I don't know what the basis for that was but I assumed that there must be some legal basis.