Anulled Bankruptcy - Do I Have A Case ?

[vselym]

Hi all, just putting this out there to see if anyone can catorgorically state "leave it alone, you've no chance !"

 

Potted History As Follows :

 

In 2002 i was made bankrupt for the sum of £3500.00 by CEF (City Electrical Factors). In 1998 I had opened an account as a Sole Trader, with CEF, which had run without problem for approx 2 yrs. In 2000, my company became "Ltd" upon the advice of my accountant, and traded for 18 months with CEF without issue. (BTW all purchase orders and payments were made by "Ltd" company headed paper and cheques)

 

Late 2001, the "Ltd" company was folded, and that was that !?

 

In August 2002 I was contacted by the IA (Insolvency Agency), asking me to attend a meeting at their offices as I had been made bankrupt. Having attended the meeting and answering the questions, eventually, ie 1 year later, my case had been passed to the Canterbury office, I had attended Reading IS offices for my interview, and then onto an Insolvency Practitioners company, Shaw & Co, based in Oxford.

 

After the "Ltd" company had folded, I wasn't in the best of mental states and had buried my head in the sand to an extent. I was very lucky by virtue of the fact that my dad was in a position to help financially, and here is the crux of my dilemma.

 

We, my dad and I, approached Shaw & Co for a settlement figure, and at this point I specifically asked for an estimation of their costs for closing the account to be included in this settlement figure, so that there were no hidden costs at the end. In fairness to them, they also included a breakdown of the various people involved at their end and the hourly charge for each person. The figure they came up with was £10500.00, which included a £1000.00 apparently due to Powergen, but yes, an additional £6000.00 more than was filed for, for bankruptcy.

 

I should also point out that the reason I was'nt aware of the pending bankruptcy was that CEF served all papers on the business address, strange that, as they used the argument in court that I hadn't informed them of the change to "Ltd" company, and hence my original application as a Sole Trader still applied, and as per the application for a Sole Trader account, I had to supply my personal home address, so surely that's where the papers should have been served ?

 

Back to the settlement figure, £1500.00 was for Shaw & Co's charges to close the account, which according to them was to advertise the account in the London Gazette, write 3 cheques, to my creditors, and then inform the IS, personally I would calculate that as at most an hours work for any trained monkey, £1500.00, not a bad return eh ?

 

My major problem here is this tho, that Powergen couldn't prove the debt and so were never paid. Superb thinks me, £1000.00 due back to the old man, WRONG !

 

When I contacted Shaw & Co after my anullment was granted, they informed me, that there was no monies due, and in fact their estimation of costs had been short, the £1000.00 due to Powergen had gone some way to addressing the shortfall, and out of "kindness" they had written the remainder of the account off !

 

I naturally queried this and asked for a breakdown of costs, of particular interest was the addition of a "Senior Partner" on their costings sheet, who at £140.00 had managed to clock up, yep, you guessed it 10 hours ! This "catergory" of person involved in the case, had not appeared in the original estimate of costs to close the account. Bearing in mind that they had already "estimated" £1500.00 of costs to close the account, where in the world did they "under" estimate £1400.00 ?

 

I'm thinking of SAR'ing Shaw & Co for a starter, and having read around the various forums I think I'm kinda snookered on the disagreeing with the way the original case went through,

 

 

thus any input from learned folk on this site would be greatly appreciated

 

 

regards

 

Vselym

[slick132]

Hi Vselym,

 

To give an idea of the timescale involved, when was the annullment granted.

[vselym]

Hi Slick123

 

the anullment order was granted in May 2002, approx 2 years from the original bankruptcy order, which incidentally was ammended twice before i was made aware of it. The first two bankruptcy orders had incorrect details on them.

 

Regards

 

vselym

[slick132]

So when were you made aware of the increased costs which Shaw & Co racked up with "senior" hours.

[vselym]

Slick

 

I was only aware of the senior charges after i had contacted Shaw & Co about a month after the anullment was granted. I wrote to them requesting the return of the £1000.00 powergen hadn't been paid, to which i was informed that that had been swallowed by costs. I requested a breakdown of costs which is where the "senior" costs first appeared

 

 

regards

 

vselym

[slick132]

Hi Vselym,

 

I suspect that, as you were aware of the "unexpected" costs in mid 2002, you would have very little chance of contesting this now.

 

Perhaps you are thinking of bank charge reclaims going back six years. But this only works because people have only (relatively) recently become aware that banks have been charging peeps unlawfully.

 

It may have been reasonable to contest the unexpected charges when you were told of them or even within, say, a year. However, to raise the matter almost 6 years on when there's no suggestion that the Co tried to conceal (as with the bank charges) the nature of their charges, would be bound to fail.

 

To use your own words, and I suspect this is what you expected, leave it alone - you've no chance.

[vselym]

Thanks Slick123

 

I understand what you say, but the Limitations Act is 6 years, and is there to protect the individual as much as allow unscrupulous DCA's to keep alive "debts" and update the CRA's addinfinitum !

 

Whilst this happened 4 years ago, at the time I wasn't mentally in a place to do anything about it, or as i thought at the time, financially in a position to instruct a solicitor to deal with it. It is only with the help recently of this site that i would feel confident in bringing a case myself.

 

And believe me this bankruptcy cost me far more than £10500.00 !!

 

 

regards

 

vselym

[slick132]

Hi Vselym,

 

I understand what you say but I just think you'd be banging your head against the proverbial brick wall with this.

 

I don't think the Limitations Act is the issue here. I think is is more to do with:-

 

1) You would be arguing about matters which occurred approx 6 years back.

 

2) While I agree the extra costs may seem unfair, you would have difficulty proving this so long after the event.

 

3) A court, if it came to that, is bound to consider why this wasn't sorted long ago.

 

4) If you weren't mentally up to dealing with this at the time, you could have instructed a solicitor or taken legal advice from CAB or others, and acted upon that advice.

 

By all means, contact a local solicitor now for a free initial 30 or 60 mins consultation and see what they think. This is, after all, just my opinion.

[vselym]

Thanks Slick123

 

All points made are valid, but i'm gonna take a punt on £10's worth of SAR letter, can't see it doing any harm

 

Will post with results

 

Regards

 

vselym

[slick132]

Good for you and let us know what comes back.

 

Then take free solicitor's session if you want - all for a tenner !