The House of Lords judgment has discredited a claim deadline imposed by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

The ruling means that claims previously rejected as ineligible and made prior to the original June 2003 deadline will be paid in full.

Previously, HMRC argued that in order to qualify for payment, businesses had to prove that they were unaware of the VAT rebate at the time and would have made a claim. The new ruling has loosened this criterion and claims can now be made by any business that could have been able to do so in the past. Mike Jones, partner at automotive chartered accountants Trevor Jones, said: “The eligibility side of things, as in the people who had their claims previously rejected, will affect hundreds of dealers and they will be set to recoup tens of millions of pounds. “Lots of people received significant windfalls between 2003 and 2005. Overall this has been worth over £100m to the motor trade.” Jones warned, however, that the full effect of the decision would not be known until HMRC releases its business brief in a few weeks time. “We'll know whether the gloves are off and everybody's happy when this brief comes out,” he said. “The picture will become significantly clearer then.”