I had worked at a bar - let's nickname it "Tribe Bar" - as the head doorman for over ten years when in August 2010 a new owner came in - I'll nickname them "City Leisure". There was one director, though his company secretary (who had previously co-directed various companies with him) later came onboard. All the staff were kept on bar me. Because I worked via a management company, City Leisure assumed I wasn't entitled to any rights, so got someone cheaper in. The first Tribunal was to decide who my employer was at the time of my dismissal. City Leisure didn't show up - but only to buy time. They came up with a cockamamie reason that the judge accepted, and so on to Tribunal two. Here, it was decided there had indeed been a TUPE transfer. During the third and supposedly final Tribunal - which because of a few cancellations due to the opposition again buying time, didn't take place until March 2012 - City Leisure were found culpable and, a month later, were ordered to pay a total of almost£17,000. The thing is, they were granted leave to appeal on a technical issue,and so a final Tribunal took place over a year later (more time-buying from the opposition), April 2013. I won outright this time. But here's the problem:they've not paid a penny because they managed to get themselves struck off Companies House. According to my brief, this means I'll have to go down the civil route and "that will cost thousands and won't be worth it". Icontacted Companies House, who told me the law was that City Leisure was supposed to have told me/my brief that they were applying to be struck off before it happened, and also inform them, Companies House, that they were involved in a court case. They did neither. Apparently, they were struck off October 2011 (the first I heard of it was a letter to my brief from City Leisure in April 2012 saying they had sold the bar - at the time my brief said we should just carry on with the case and see what happens). The 'new' owner of the bar was "Tribe Bar Ltd" - its sole director a RELATIVE of one of City Leisure's directors! Since then, I've checked with licensing. They tell me that, although Tribe Bar Ltd is according to Company Check still the owner of Tribe Bar, the licensee has gone from being Tribe Bar Ltd to "Nelson Ltd" (again, my nickname), which is owned by - surprise, surprise - one of the directors of City Leisure. There's further proof that the people from City Leisure continued to, and still do, run/own Tribe Bar, despite their claim to have sold it - not only is one of the directors constantly there running it, but (a) he actually gave an interview online as the company owner past the supposedly sold date, and (b) other companies are registered to City Leisure'sdirectors at Tribe Bar's address. How annoying that Companies House told me words to the effect of, "We just take people at face value when they want to be struck off, we don't investigate" - thanks Companies House. That ridiculous policy lost me £17,000. Here are my questions: 1) When my brief says that it will cost me thousands to take these people to civil court,does he mean mostly in his fees? Can I do this on the cheap myself? 2) Since the directors of City Leisure have clearly broken Companies House rules, if I should prove it to them, does this mean City Leisure will be put back on the register? And if so, doesn't this mean that they will have to pay me my money, as though they were never struck off? 3) Although the actual decision to award me damages came after the strike off and supposed new company ownership, since all the staff stayed on (and hence another TUPE transfer), isn't Tribe Bar Ltd, the 'new' owner, libel for the £17,000 4) What should I do now?

I need to restore an old company in Scotland that was dissolved voluntarily in 2007 as unfortunately my business partner (now deceased) did not change the bank account when we restarted the company. Stupidly, we kept using the same account for the new company. Now the bank has finally spotted the company is dissolved (took them 7 years) and froze the account and given the Crown all our money. About £4000 I have established we can restore the old company by court order for sole reason reclaim the money. There are no creditors. The costs of hiring a solicitor looked quite high and so I want to attempt this myself. Does anyone have any advice ? Long shot but just thought I'd ask. Main issue seems to be laying out all the information and evidence correctly in the order as there is no set form or template.

Hello, Thank you for all the wonderful advice you have given me inadvertently as I have browsed the forum. I wonder if you have any advice for this... We are currently in dispute with a car dealer as our engine needs rebuilding only 10weeks after buying the car. It seems as if we are heading towards the Small Claims Court as he just keeps whittering about how we aren't covered under warranty. A business friend of my husband looked the company up and found that this business isn't registered under their trading name, or place of business. He says that it will be registered, but under an unrelated name, and a different address so that if needs be they can disappear from there and pop up trading under a different name somewhere else. My questions are: 1) If I file a small claims can I do it under his trading name, or do I have to know the name he is under at companies house? 2) How likely is he to disappear if I instigate legal proceedings in your experience? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Pheobe.

Hi All Wonder if someone might be able to advise me if I can claim back the fee I paid to an accountancy firm plus time spent finding out they had "lied" to me. I am a one-man company. 8 Nov 2010: I handed my company accounts to an accountancy firm 2 months before my accounts were due to Companies House. This has not been a problem in the past. I called up at the end of November to talk to the accountant who normally handles my accounts to find out how things were going and to let him know that I was leaving the country. I was unable to speak with him personally and was told the message would be passed onto him. 13 Dec: A new accountant from the firm introduces himself to me via email. I ask him what has happened to my old accountant. He tells me that the old accountant had poor health and thus left at the end of November. 17 Dec: Accountant completes my accounts and asks me to send back the originals ASAP back to the UK. I email back to ask him to send it via webfiling as this had already been set up for me in the previous year. 22 Dec: He says there are problems at Companies House (CH) as the company has been unable to send anything to CH over the last 3 weeks. I ask him to call CH and ask to send a scanned copy of my accounts to CH. He tells me that they had received an email from CH that they had a skeleton staff due to the weather and that only the originals could be sent to CH. I posted my accounts by express post from the country I was in. This normally has a 2-4 working day delivery time BUT due to the weather conditions were not guarantee-ing the delivery. CH received my accounts on 4 Jan 2011. 4 days late and thus received a penalty. I appealed the penalty and got a waiver but the accounts would still be filed late. I also received a letter in January 2011, co-incidentally backdated to Dec 13 that the accountant I used to deal with had left the company due to ill health. 2011: Unfortunately I delivered my accounts late to CH a second time (my fault - got confused between HMRC and Companies House as this was the first time I had done my company accounts myself) I was thus given a double penalty for having delivered my accounts late twice in a row. I appealed the 2010 late filing and found out from CH that: 1. There was no issues with their web filing in 2010. I thus asked the ex-accountant to send me the failed delivery slip. They sent me a failed delivery slip that indicated there was a failure on their side due to their template not aligning with CH and I found out the email was an internal email and not from CH. 2. They would have accepted a signed copy of the accounts. One of the directors from my ex-accountant's company has indicated that: 1. I handed my accounts to them late and so they were unable to turn it around in time. 2. It was my responsibility to get my accounts in on time (as specified in CH's regulations).....I wonder why I employed a firm of accountants!!! 3. The double penalty is independent of 2010. (one gets a double penalty for late filing in 2 consecutive years) 4. Since I settled their fee with them, I have accepted that everything was fine. This was my mistake as I was not happy with the service provided at the time but was being given the run around and decided to pay them their fee and to never use them again. I also recently found out that the original accountant's contract had been terminated with the company in the 2nd week of Nov and so they could have alerted me much sooner about him leaving. (for the last 4 years my relationship has been wholly with the original accountant who was pushed out of the company) Would appreciate any guidance here.