What is a letter before action?

A letter before action (LBA) is a formal notice sent before starting court proceedings. It sets out your claim, the legal basis (e.g. Consumer Rights Act 2015, Housing Act 1988), the remedy you seek, and a deadline to respond — typically 14 days. Civil Procedure Rules require this step before most court claims, and courts take a dim view of parties who skip it.

Can I write my own legal letter?

Yes. You do not need a solicitor to write a legal letter. What matters is citing the correct legislation, stating your claim with precise dates and amounts, and giving a clear deadline. A well-drafted letter citing the right Act and section often resolves disputes without court proceedings — and costs nothing extra to send.

Does a legal letter actually work?

In many cases, yes. Most businesses, landlords, and employers respond when they receive a formally worded letter that cites specific legislation and mentions court or tribunal proceedings as the next step. It signals you know your rights and are prepared to escalate — which is often enough to get a resolution.

What UK legislation covers consumer complaints and refunds?

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is the primary law. Section 9 requires goods to be of satisfactory quality; section 20 gives you the right to a full refund within 30 days if goods are faulty. For services, section 49 requires reasonable care and skill. For distance/online purchases, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 give you a 14-day cooling-off period.

4 September 2026

Sent Money to the Wrong Bank Account by Mistake? How to Get It Back (UK)

You go to pay a bill or send money to a friend, mistype one digit of the account number, or tap an old saved payee by accident — and hundreds of pounds shoot off to a complete stranger in seconds. It is one of the most common banking mistakes there is, and the first thing people are told is the worst: “Faster Payments are instant and final, there is nothing we can do.” That is only half true. You cannot simply undo the transfer yourself, but your bank has to try to get it back for you under an agreed industry process, and if that fails you still have legal routes. Here is exactly how it works.

General information for the UK. Not legal advice. This is about a genuine mistake — you meant to send the money but it went to the wrong account. It is not about being tricked by a scammer, which is a completely different regime (covered at the end).

Do this first, today: tell your bank immediately — phone, app chat or in branch. The recovery clock only starts when you report it, and the longer you wait, the more likely the money has already been spent or moved on. Give them the date, amount, and the exact sort code and account number you sent it to. Ask them to raise a “misdirected payment” recovery. Do not just wait and hope it bounces back — it will not.

What your bank has to do — and how fast

UK banks follow an agreed Best Practice Code on Misdirected Payments, which covers Faster Payments, CHAPS and Bacs transfers. It is a voluntary industry code rather than a law, but the main banks sign up to it, and the Financial Ombudsman will hold a bank to it. Once you report a payment sent to the wrong account, the code sets two clear deadlines:

Your bank must start trying to recover the money within a maximum of 2 working days of you reporting it — by contacting the receiving bank (the bank of whoever got your money).
Your bank must tell you the outcome of that investigation within a maximum of 20 working days if the money cannot be returned straight away.

The receiving bank is then asked to “protect” (freeze) the funds where there is clear evidence of a genuine mistake, and to contact its own customer — the person who received your money — to ask them to agree to send it back.

Why your bank cannot just “reverse” it. Once your payment lands and is accepted by the receiving bank, that money is, in law, sitting in someone else’s account. Your bank has no power to reach into another bank’s customer’s account and pull cash out without consent — that account holder has their own contract and rights. That is the whole reason recovery depends on the recipient agreeing, not on a magic “undo” button. Anyone who tells you the bank can instantly claw it back is wrong.

If the recipient agrees — and if they do not

If the recipient agrees the money went to them by mistake, the frozen funds are returned to you, usually within that 20-working-day window. This is the most common happy ending, especially for honest mistakes into an active account.
If the recipient disputes it — claims the money is genuinely theirs — the receiving bank cannot simply take it back, and the process stalls. The bank must then give you clear information on your remaining options, which usually means pursuing the recipient yourself.
If the recipient has already spent it, or ignores the bank, the bank-to-bank route often fails. Again, that is not necessarily the end — see the legal routes below.

The “13-month deadline” myth. You may read that you have “13 months” to claim. That figure belongs to a different situation — it is the deadline under the Payment Services Regulations to report an unauthorised or wrongly-processed payment (fraud, or the bank’s own error). It does not set a deadline for your own mistaken payment. There is no code cut-off that makes you “too late” — but delay wrecks your practical chances, so report it now, not next week.

Confirmation of Payee: the name-check that should have caught it

Most UK banking apps now run Confirmation of Payee — the check that tells you whether the name you typed matches the name on the account before you send. It is a rule imposed by the Payment Systems Regulator and it is still being rolled out across smaller providers (with more firms due to have it live by the end of 2026). It has cut down accidental wrong payments a lot — but it is a warning, not a barrier: if you got a “name does not match” alert and pressed on anyway, or the payment was to a type of account it does not fully cover, the money still goes. If you were not shown a proper name-check when you should have been, that is worth raising with your bank as part of a complaint.

If the bank cannot get it back: your legal routes

When the recipient refuses or has spent the money and the bank route runs out, you are not automatically written off. Two things to know:

You can sue the recipient in the small claims court. Someone who receives money they were never owed and keeps it is “unjustly enriched” at your expense, and a court can order them to repay it. The bank can usually give you the recipient’s name and address for the purpose of a court claim once the informal route has failed. Small claims limits: up to £10,000 in England & Wales, up to £5,000 via Simple Procedure in Scotland, and up to £5,000 in the Northern Ireland small claims court.
Keeping it can be a criminal offence. Someone who dishonestly keeps money they know is not theirs, and does not take reasonable steps to give it back, can be committing an offence of retaining a wrongful credit under section 24A of the Theft Act 1968. You will not use that lever for most cases, but it is a legitimate point to put in a firm letter — a recipient who is stalling in the hope you go away may think again when they realise refusing to return it is not consequence-free.

Escalating against your own bank. If your bank failed to follow the process — did not act within 2 working days, never contacted the receiving bank, gave you no options, or lost time — that is a complaint. Put it in writing. The bank must send a final response within 8 weeks. If you are unhappy with it (or 8 weeks pass with no answer), you can take it free to the Financial Ombudsman Service, generally within 6 months of the final response. The Ombudsman can order your bank to compensate you for its failings — though it cannot force the recipient or the other bank to hand back money that was validly credited. Its maximum award is high (over £450,000, uprated each April — check the current figure), but the real value here is that it holds your bank to the code for free.

This is NOT a scam refund — do not confuse the two

If a criminal tricked you into sending money (a fake seller, a “your account is at risk, move your money” call, a bogus invoice), that is an authorised push payment (APP) scam and a totally separate set of rules applies — mandatory reimbursement by your bank, with a fast decision and a high reimbursement cap. This page is about an honest mistake, where there is no automatic reimbursement guarantee — recovery depends on the recipient and, failing that, on you pursuing them. If you were scammed, do not follow this page: report it as fraud and claim under the APP scam rules instead.

Getting the letter right

Two letters do the heavy lifting here. The first is a formal recovery request and complaint to your bank — setting out the date, amount and wrong account details, requiring them to raise a misdirected-payment recovery, and holding them to the 2-working-day and 20-working-day standards (and asking them to compensate any failure of their own). The second, if the recipient will not return it, is a letter before action to the recipient — stating that they have received money they are not entitled to, that keeping it is unjust enrichment (and potentially an offence under section 24A of the Theft Act 1968), and giving them a deadline to repay before you issue a small claim. A clear, firm letter is often all it takes to get the money moving.

Generate Your Wrong-Payment Recovery Letter in Seconds

WriteMyLegalLetter drafts a clear, firm letter — either demanding your bank recover a payment sent to the wrong account and follow the misdirected-payments code, or a letter before action to a recipient who will not return money that was never theirs. Answer a few questions and your letter is ready to send.

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This applies across the UK; the banking recovery process, Confirmation of Payee and Financial Ombudsman jurisdiction are UK-wide, and only the small claims court venue and limit differ between England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The misdirected-payments process is a voluntary industry code, not a statutory guarantee, and — unlike an APP scam — carries no automatic reimbursement. The Financial Ombudsman award limit is uprated each April, so check the current figure. Sources: industry Best Practice Code on Misdirected Payments (Faster Payments/CHAPS/Bacs); Which?, “How do I get money back that I’ve sent to the wrong account?”; Payment Systems Regulator on Confirmation of Payee; Financial Ombudsman Service; Theft Act 1968 s.24A. General information, not legal advice — check the current position before you act.