Thread: help - an odd one

Not sure if this is the right part of the forum..

while going bankrupt, my parents were strongly advised by their solicitor to form a new company with someone else (me) as the MD so that they could keep the pub they leased, the company was formed by the solicitor, who telephoned me, and asked if it was ok to use my name to sort out the company for my parents, to which I said yes. My parents were under the belief that the formation of the company was all included in the solicitors final bill, he certainly gave that impression to them. Now, I am getting Invoices and threats of Legal action for the sum of £300 essentially for the registration of the company, nothing else included. ( I thought it cost about £50 to register one??) They only agreed to him doing it to save a bit of hassle and going online themselves, he just told them it would take him a tiny bit of time in the afternoon to form the company. When I spoke to him on the phone, he never mentioned to me that there would be extra charges for it, let alone directed towards me.

So im wondering where I stand? Certainly I have never signed ANYTHING with him, just agreed on phone that he could use my name to help my parents out. My parents also never signed anything with him.

Is there any CCA defence possible, he did whatever he did end of august, beginning of september, and the invoice dropped out of the blue about 5 weeks later, and now another invoice in post today so in effect credit has been granted - like the other one, not containing a contact phone number, no company logo, just clearly a very basic invoice print, with their name printed with the invoice in blue, and the whole thing obviously knocked quickly off on an inkjet printer. from the invoice the company looks just a bit cheap and dodgy

This invoice has the legal action threat hastilly scrawled in red ink, the invoice itself does not even mention what the services provided were, and threatens 7 days from the date of the letter, which is the 15th of December, but from the postmark on the envelope was not even posted till the 18th....

As the icing on the cake of a crappy year for them, my parents have only gone bankrupt due to the shocking misadvice and possible willfull negligence of an IVA advisor, and then ended up with this dodgy seeming solicitor...

Let me see if I have got this right. You agreed to set up a company with your
parents in order for them to put their pub beyond the reach of creditors. And
while you see nothing dodgy about it[?] you are then amazed that the guy
who worked it out [and presumably saved your parents from losing the pub]
may be dodgy.

Yes it is possible to register companies quite cheaply-if you do it yourself,
since your time is free, but a solicitor would obviously not be so accomodating. I have no way of knowing if his fees for opening the company
were included in your parents bill, though I would have thought that in the
interest of making the transaction appear kosher, that it would be the MD
who would be billed, paid for by the pub and included as a legitimate
expense.
If your parents did not receive an itemised bill, then maybe they should
contact the solicitor advising him that they have already paid and see his
reaction.

no they were NOT avoiding creditors.

And the company was not formed to avoid them. they in effect leased the pub from the brewery, paying rent etc. The suggestion from the solicitor to form a new company came AFTER the bankruptcy order was granted, and any property that the Insolvency Service could take had been taken. The company was merely to reassure the Brewery, and allow my parents to continue working with them, ie the brewery prefers to deal with a ltd company rather than 2 individuals. So when the company was formed, the Creditors HAD received everything that could be taken from their finances and assets. They did not want to go bankrupt, and wanted to pay their debts. "Their" pub was owned by the brewery, they just rented it, and took a percentage of the profits.

At no point in his extremely brief phonecall was it pointed out to me, that this was not included in whatever the parents were paying him, as I say I have signed nothing with him. If forming the company to try and continue trading (and they would have used their wages to pay sums every month to the creditors as per the bankruptcy order) is dodgy, then I will be happy to see the solicitor in court, since it was ALL through his suggestion and insistance, so he himself has maybe exceeded the law or his duties? In actual fact the Solicitor was even suggesting to them that HE himself would invest in the new company with some capital, as he believed that they would be able to continue operating the pub with decent profit margins. At the very least he has misled me. He even knows that I would have had/have no money to pay for this, as he asked me if id be able to set up a business bank account, and I pointed out that my credit rating was so bad, my own bank wouldnt even upgrade me from a basic account, so he knew I had no means to pay for any bills which he ommitted to inform me would exist..

As that is the case ,then I apologise.
However, my last point still is valid. That to set up the company, logic would dictate that it would the MD who was billed, and it would be paid by the
company as a business expense.