Statutory demand for payment, Debt for liquidated sum payable immediately

[spexs]

Well from my first post as Spex357 in the year??? i have been expecting this day, my first Statutory demand. This is from a signature i gave on an account for a national builders suppliers for a company i was appointed director too in the last two years. It seems official in every respect, name of creditor, court address, warning etc. I remember the day my MD asked me to sign a form whilst the rep was still there, and the thought if they look at my credit record it wont happen, but hey it did so hear we are. Am i right in thinking i need to send a request for the agreement etc to see exactly what i have signed for?

[rippedoffagain]

The form you signed, was it a personal guarantee? In what capacity were you a director, did you have shares?

[tomterm8]

Um, have you got a copy of the form? Can we see it?

[spexs]

HI

I was a director in name only, but was issued with shares at some time, i think they made me a director so they didnt have to pay me regular. I am thinking its a personal guarantee and no i dont have it.

[rippedoffagain]

You say you have been expecting this day. Have you had correspondence regarding this situation? approximately what is the amount involved?

[palomino]

Company directors have certain legal responsibilities and obligations. If you have signed something as a director then you probably have some serious trouble looming.

 

Can you tell us a lot more detail for us to assess the likely implications.

 

When did you receive the SD and when do you have to respond by?

Are you still working for the company?

Is the company still trading? If not is it in voluntary liquidation or receivership?

What documents do have?

Are you still a director or has your directorship been terminated or have you resigned?

Did any other directors sign the same form or, if it was for you individually, their own individual version of it?

What is the nature of the debt? - unpaid bill?

 

You should request a copy of the agreement you signed so we can see exactly what it consists of (but note that, being a business matter, this isn't covered by the Consumer Credit Act so any request under that act is irrelevant).

 

Just a thought : was this a guarantee of some sort? Pondering over your comments it sounds that way.

Edited July 26, 2008 by palomino
missed a word

[spexs]

Hi all

I have been expecting some doom since week one of my appoinment. It became apparent very quickly the other four directors had no idea on the money, accounting side of business. The bill of £13,000 is for unpaid building materials. I am pretty sure myself, The MD and one other director are signatures, i have mailed the ex MD to see if he has the office paperwork at home, if so i should have a copy pretty quickly. We did lose two directors by resignation but they where not removed from companys house when i last looked (May). On my MDs return from his holiday as he flipped through the stack of unpaid bills he suddenly announced there was no point going on and promptly sat down at the pc behind me. Ten minutes later he said he had resigned and so had i. How was my first thought, ive resigned you at companys house just now and removed us. Having spent nearly two years worrying about the mess of a company i was working for and worse, i was a director, on hearing that i stood up and left. The company no longer trades as far as i know, but is relying on some one to put it out of business has it has no funds.

My next concern is should it have been shut down sooner.

If i request a copy of the agreement are they duty bound to supply it?

[emmliss]

hi

can anyone give me some advice been to cab today they wasnt very helpfull,well i recieved a statutory demand under section 268(1)(a) on sat 9th its now wednesday 13th august the demand is from connaught collections for a credit card debt of £1044.00 which they say is from 2004 i cannot even remember a credit card from the company style.the stat demand was sent by second class post it doesnt give detail of which court i should contact it just says on page 3 if you believe this should be set aside contact our offices and then gives there phone number.

the date on their demand is the 26th july yet i got it in the post on saturday 9th august.i no i have 18 days to set aside so i went to cab and they sent me to the county court yet my local court doesnt deal with this i have to go to the next county suffolk and im in norfolk to have it set aside,yet the 18th day is today according to their letter .

 

What will happen do you think if i dont go to suffolk and get it set aside do you think its a threat/bluff or do you think its real. i have no assetts i live with my partner and 3 kids i dont own my own house i have no savings the only thing i have is my car.and im on jobseekers.

 

what would the next step be for them would they go as far as bankrupt me for a small debt if it went that far would they take my car as i use it each day as my mum is disabled and im on carers allowance and i have to use the car to see her and look after her each day.

 

should i contact connaught collections or wait and see or should i send them some kind of letter im really worried i carnt even remember the debt but if its mine i coulnt afford to repay the whole amount straight away but i could offer 20.00 per month at a push but i guess they wouldnt accept such a small offer.

 

any help would be great.

[icyhammer]

good to know this info

[palomino]

Emmliss, you have hijacked someone else's thread. You also have the same post in the Debt Collection Industry forum.

 

It's best to stick to your own thread.

[palomino]

Hi all

I have been expecting some doom since week one of my appoinment. It became apparent very quickly the other four directors had no idea on the money, accounting side of business. The bill of £13,000 is for unpaid building materials. I am pretty sure myself, The MD and one other director are signatures, i have mailed the ex MD to see if he has the office paperwork at home, if so i should have a copy pretty quickly. We did lose two directors by resignation but they where not removed from companys house when i last looked (May). On my MDs return from his holiday as he flipped through the stack of unpaid bills he suddenly announced there was no point going on and promptly sat down at the pc behind me. Ten minutes later he said he had resigned and so had i. How was my first thought, ive resigned you at companys house just now and removed us. Having spent nearly two years worrying about the mess of a company i was working for and worse, i was a director, on hearing that i stood up and left. The company no longer trades as far as i know, but is relying on some one to put it out of business has it has no funds.

My next concern is should it have been shut down sooner.

If i request a copy of the agreement are they duty bound to supply it?

 

Spexs is there any update on this?

[spexs]

Hi all

Still no copy from my ex MD but i will pop over to his house today and see if i can get hold of it. Last night i was handed another copy of the demand at my door, the male said he would be back in 21 days to hand me my court papers. The demand includes a £159.15 charge.

In the morning i had a letter from LLoyds regarding my previous post in another forum "its finally arrived" and had just filled in my financial statement, now it looks like i didnt need too.

[spexs]

Just spoke to the ex MD and "he hopes he has it", my chat about keeping paperwork for the insolvency people seems to have fallen on deaf ears. He did say the one of the banks is chasing the other four directors for £10,000+ which takes me right back to my question at the start of my appoinment "wheres the £10,000 gone" a reply from one as he opened out one side of his suite "look at the lining" didnt bear well for the future.

[palomino]

Spexs, You really need serious commercial advice on this. I'm not a lawyer but I have picked up a wee bit of that area from the businesses I have worked for. I can't give you legal advice for this reason, although I can put some perspective on things.

 

You signed up as director without taking legal advice or even finding out the duties and obligations of a director. This was at best naive and at worst pretty stupid [i suspect you already know this now and don't appreciate my telling you], although I understand you did this for the best of reasons.

 

You also signed an agreement to act as a guarantor for payments of goods supplied which you seem not to have read (or read properly) and seem not to have realised the implications. In essence you have signed up to pay the creditor if payment is not received from the original debtor (your old company). Were you the only such signatory?

 

Agreements where there are joint signatories tend to imply what is called joint and several liability. In other words each party is liable for that part of the debt not recoverable from other parties. If there are other signatories then what is happening about them? Have they disappeared?

If you are the only signatory then you are the only guarantor. In this case the creditor is quite legally able to ask you to pay up as that is what your signature means. Since the debt is so large I'm not surprised they are getting pretty serious about this - I would if it were me.

 

What happens now? You've received a Statutory Demand. You appear to have no grounds on which to have this set aside. You have no money or insufficient money to be able to negotiate with the creditor for a reduced settlement (which would be unlikely in any case) or staged payments as funds permit. If you do have sufficient funds I would assume that you would have paid the creditor by now.

 

If the SD is granted (the hearing can only grant the SD or set it aside - there is no discussion or negotiation about repayments or whatever) then the creditor is able to petition for your bankruptcy. Do you have your own home or any other property? What other debts do you have?

Being bankrupt may be an option but you must take advice on this from (at least) the Citizens Advice Bureau and the National Debtline.

Alternatively you must find a way to provide for the debt somehow. If you have no realisable assets then you might want to consider allowing a charging order on your property (if you have any).

 

In post 6 I asked a number of questions which you haven't really answered. Can you have a look at these again (and the ones in this post) and let us know the details so we can help you better. At the moment we are rather groping in the dark.

A look at the form would also be very useful if you could upload a scanned copy here (remove your personal details from the scanned image before uploading).

 

 

One final thought : you say a bank is chasing the other four directors for £10K+. Is the reason that you are not involved with this because it was incurred prior to your becoming a director?

[spex357]

Yes, i have hung out to the end luckily, only two weeks before my MD said the company needed me on the bank, on the way home my office junior suggested i told him No followed by a chuckle and "good luck" my MD was a serial bully and would resort to violence if he didnt get his way, on site was different as you couldnt be seen to be fighting so once he threw a drill at me in a temper for telling him he was doing it wrong.

[spex357]

I'm getting the feeling my MD doesnt or cant give it to me. do i need to CCA Travis or just ask?

[spex357]

Any novelists in the house i'm looking at a remake of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and perhaps a film to follow

[spex357]

Assets seem to have been in short supply since i became a single parent 10 years ago, especially spending three years on the sick or JSA and my wife staying in the house whilst we have had two social housing moves involving carpets and curtains, beds, pots and pans etc. We have never actually bought any furniture yet to put anything in or on which my children say has made them into throw away people, and receipts are rare to back up their belongings. Much joy ahead:rolleyes:

I dont even have the pleasure of any womens assets at the moment which is a bummer

[spexs]

Hi Palomino

I never expected in my life to be a director, so week one i was in research mode and have been ever since, and everytime we had an office meeting i would drag up pages to show them all there obligations as directors. It was worthy of a photo seeing them all bent over looking at the screen but i think the only bit of advice they ever took was getting Articles of association drawn up. I was a major thorn in their sides but had no clout being out numbered.

[palomino]

I'm getting the feeling my MD doesnt or cant give it to me.

 

From what you have described so far in this thread that is probably to be expected. Did you ever have a copy of your own?

 

do i need to CCA Travis or just ask?

 

The Consumer Credit Act (CCA) applies to credit agreements. Your agreement isn't a credit agreement, it's a guarantee. Hence the CCA is entirely irrelevant.

But, yes, you could ask Travis. I would imagine they would be able to provide a copy in view of the impending court action.

 

One further thought : did you sign the form as a director or just yourself personally? If you signed as a director but then ceased to be a director then your liability might have ceased at that point. You will need a lawyer to talk to you about this.

[spex357]

Still no joy from the Md but managed to find it on-line

AccountApplicationForm.pdf

[spex357]

Hi All

The shares situation was a little odd, not what i expected, a quick call some papers to sign and no money changed hands. I think the first set up shares cost them maybe a pound which they shared out with me when i joined, and then later after two had left (sacked, Resigned) Md ordered some more for us two as there was a problem getting them back and he was worried about the balance of power. I'm pretty sure no money changed hands at that time.

[spex357]

Its Bank holiday Monday and i should have been going to Turkey today, thankfully i cancelled it as soon as my friends had booked it and against their better judgement i stuck to it.

[palomino]

Still no joy from the Md but managed to find it on-line

 

Presumably you filled in your details in the Credit Guarantee box and the Names and Addresses box. There is nowhere to say in what capacity you signed the form but since the boxes specify owner/director/company secretary it can be presumed that you signed as one of those (probably director).

Did any one else sign the form?

 

There is nothing in the small print to say that your guarantee ceases when you cease to hold the position in which signed as a guarantor. TP will therefore try and say that it was therefore in perpetuity, however I believe your liability ends when your position and/or employment ends. This is where you need a good commercial lawyer. If you can afford it try and get this single point clarified although this unlikely to be 'get out of jail free' card.

 

 

Does TP know that you are no longer involved with the business and, in particular, do they know you ceased to be a director some time ago? Was payment of TP's account overdue at the time you ceased you involvement with the business?

[spexs]

HI Palomino

Yes i'm pretty sure it would have been on stop like every account was, My MD and office junior signed, junior hasnt had any letters. The rep spoke to the MD some weeks ago and TP are well aware we are no longer trading.

I am looking online for a business forum as good as this one, but no joy yet. I am not looking for a get out of jail card, i would just like to show my MD how much mire he is in, Written down so he can read it over and over again so it sinks in. He thinks its no big deal, a quick visit to a judge say your bit, home have lunch, set up another company, start again, peni.