Appealing against penalties

JodieR

I took on a client last year who's wife had died - she was meant to have been filing his tax returns but it turns out that she wasn't. He has a bookkeeper who's always filed his VAT returns so they all seem to be up to date and accurate but the self assessment side had been neglected. I filed his 2010/11 and 2011/12 tax returns in July last year and he had approx £2300 and £1200 tax to pay for the respective years. The penalties for the late submission of these returns are £1950 and £1118 respectively. Now I know that it's his fault for ignoring the letters etc but these fines seem ridiculously excessive. Has anyone had any success appealing against them and if so how did you go about it?
Jodie