Hi. I am really getting myself in a mess worrying about this and hope that someone can help me please... I was one of four directors, running a small business until we had to go into liquidation in August last year. I was working as self-employed until May 09 but the work was not regular and so I have been temping for the last couple months, earning £256 per week. I do still earn some money from other work but it isnt regular so I cannot count on that as extra income. I was personal guarantor on the company vehicle HP and had a CCJ filed against me a couple of months ago for £16k. I am paying £5/month. I am being chased by Lloyds TSB for the personal guarantee signed for the business bank account. The other 3 directors are also guarantors but it is joint and severable, so I am facing another CCJ action for a potential £20k. During the early days of setting up the business I did get myself into quite a bit of personal debt. I still owe £6k on a personal loan and about £9k on credit cards. As it stands, I am short on my essential outgoings by about £300 per month (I've only been able to clear everything by my additional earnings and my partner covering living costs, etc). I am considering bankruptcy but my main concern is whether we would lose our home. We bought it in 2006 on a 95% mortgage, interest only. I assume we are currently in negative equity but cannot say for definite as no one has sold in our immediate area for some time. If we have negative equity, would the house be taken from us? I'd really appreciate any advice. Thanks.

Hi. I really hope that someone can please help me. After my business went into liquidation, as personal guarantor for the vehicle HP, I was chased by the finance company for the outstanding finance. Even after the vehicles were taken and auctioned, this left a balance of more than £15k. I was unable to pay but had no grounds to defend. I have been out of work ever since I lost my job. I was trying to earn as self employed but this has not worked out so I am planning to sign on this week. I completed a form with financial information, which bascially shows that my outgoings are horrendous and I have no income. I made a modest offer for repayment of £5/month. They have rejected my offer and I have received a Judgement for Claimant today which states that I have to pay the full amount forthwith. I can't do that! What happens now!?

Thanks. Further to the above post, please can this post be moved to Legal Issues. Thanks.

Thanks. They have produced a copy of the signed PG agreement so there is no way to defend the claim that I owe the money. I have spoken to them and asked what offer they would accept. £12k is their minimum settlement figure. I cant find that sort of money so I assume my best action is to complete the paperwork with my financial info and repeat the offer of £5/month. I did ask what they thought they could achieve by pursuing court action rather than just accepting my offer. The response was "your situation wont always be the same" ... so I assume they would seek some order to allow the terms to be reviewed? Good luck with your case and thanks for the info.

Hi. I really hope someone can give me some advice with how I should proceed please... I was personal guarantor on finance my company took to purchase two vehicles. The company folded last August and I am being pursued by the finance company. They took the vehicles back but this left £15k outstanding. I am out of work, have no savings, etc. On 10th Feb I received a letter telling me that I had to give them a payment proposal to prevent legal action. I wrote back a couple of days later. On 14th I received a Claim Form filed with the Courts. The statement was dated 10th Feb. So I was given no opportunity to prevent the legal action. I have made an offer of £5k lump sum. Alternatively, I have complete income/expenditure and offered £5/month. I received a letter back from them today, rejecting both offers: 1. £5/month is too low and they note from my income/expenditure that I cannot afford to pay that. 2. £5k lump sum rejected. They state that they would consider a settlement but it would need to be 'considerably' more. I really dont know where I go from here and I'm really worried about the outcome - can a Court force me into Bankruptcy or seize goods? Can I defend the Claim on the basis that I was not given an opportunity to settle out of court beforehand?

I have been communicating with the finance company. I received a letter on 12th February (dated 10th February) enclosing a copy of the agreement I signed as personal guarantor and requesting a payment proposal by return. I posted my reply yesterday. Today, I have received a County Court Claim which was issued on 13th February (meaning it must have been filed on 12th February?). So they gave me very little/no time to respond and prevent legal action. Up to this point, I have always been extremely responsive and kept communications open - I have had to wait weeks for some of their correspondence. I feel that they have acted unfairly in issuing the action without allowing me an opportunity to respond to their letter and prevent incurring the extra court costs (£360). I had a couple of outstanding queries regarding my liability... these were raised in my letter sent yesterday: They have two copies of the Guarantee document; one where I have signed as Director on behalf of the company and the other where I have signed as personal guarantor and it is witnessed. Why are there two copies? The copy where I have signed as personal guarantor was witnessed by a co-Director. However, that particular Director was not there on the day that the cars were picked up (12th April) so he could not have signed the paperwork on the day the agreements were signed. The fax header is dated 27th April (some time after) so can this be classed as being part of the same contract? I also requested proof of the amount they say they got at auction for the vehicles - all I have seen is a statement of account - and I queried the value that got (2007 Reg Civic Type-S 2.2 CDTi 3 dr = £8600?). The milegae was quite high but after 18 months I dont believe they would have lost £10k in value? I asked them to justify the price. I also offered £5 per month. I currently have no regular income (the liquidation of the company resulted in my redundancy and I have not found another job). I have no savings/investments and am in overdraft. I am reliant upon my partner's self employed income to cover all bills, etc. The paperwork has been filed at a court across the country from where I live and so I dont even know how I would be able to attend. I have been advised by a solicitor that I should consider an IVA.

Hi. Thanks for the help. I wrote to the new owner of the website, reminding them that to comply with DPA they should complete my request within 28 days - and told them as it was now 56 days since my original request, I expected it to be done immediately. That was two days ago and today my name has been taken off The website still states "X Limited" in several places on the website. My name has been replaced with "new name", Director. So it looks to anyone viewing the website that "X Limited" is still trading and has new employees. The contact us page also still states "X Limited" with a new address and contact numbers but still has the old company house registration number. Is this not illegal?? Who would I complain to as it doesnt seem fair that they can buy assets and IP out of liquidation and appear to have bought a business that continues to trade?

Thank you all for your help. I actually received the paperwork today (in the notes, they stated receipt of my request on 19th Dec so they did take longer than 40 days!). I am still in the process of going through everything they sent me but something I find strange is that there are certain notes "blacked out". Is that ok? Should I question it... For example, one note must be in relation to a similar complaint the bank received from my colleague at the time (the complaint was regarding money paid to us as salary from our business account, which was then reversed without prior notice being served to us)... "Outgoing call with [business manager's name]... He (business manager) has already responded to a similar complaint from [blacked out text] agreed by Customer Debt Recovery Bristol" Prior to this an entire paragraph has been "blacked out". It just seems wrong to me - if it's on my file, should i not be able to read it?? FYI... by "blacked out" I mean that it has been printed from their system and then someone has gone over it with a black marker so the text is not legible.

Thank you for the replies. My understanding was that the business itself was liquidated and is no longer permitted to trade as "X Ltd". Another company bought the assets and IP from the liquidator and as far as I am aware they were going to be referring to "X" as a kind of brand within their business - making use of the logo, domain, website, etc. The actual website remains the same. I have just noticed however that the "contact us" details have now been changed to read as "X Limited" but at a new address (the new parent company) - and with the old limited company registration number! Any potential new enquiries/lapsed clients could reasonably assume that they are still dealing with a separate trading entity. A co-director of that business remains employed by the new company and on the site is still referred to as the Managing Director of "X Limited" (the same page where my details remain). I accept that the business should still be entitled to collect emails sent to my old address - but I thought that they should be advising people using that address that I am no longer employed by the business and should not be actively advertising it as a means to contact me at that business. Thanks for the help, I will write to the new owner and remind them of their obligations under the DPA - they clearly know how to amend the website as they have changed the contact details (and this has been done since I requested my name be removed!).

Thank you. I should have said that I did originally ask for this to be removed on 16th December. This request was acknowledged via the liquidator on 17th December, who stated that "I have emailed [contact at the business] and he has confirmed that he will arrange for you and [another director] to be removed." Do I need to give them another 28 days? Also, do I have any right to complain about my old email (which is using "my name" @) still being in use without any auto-responder to advise that I am no longer with the business? I know this because an ex-client of that business has subsequently tracked me down and accidentally used my old email address - when they realised and recalled the message it said that it was not able to delete from [new names's] mailbox... meaning that it is forwarding to a new employee.

Hi I have an ongoing complaint with my bank, which has subsequently been passed to the FOS to investigate - as the matter was not resolved to my satisfaction. Prior to it being passed to the FOS, I requested "subject access". I completed their paperwork and returned in their pre-paid envelope. (Stupidly) I did not keep a record of the actual date I posted it, but my cheque stub is dated 18th Dec and I certainly posted it prior to xmas. I have checked my bank and the cheque cleared on 2nd Jan. I have not received any further communication from the bank. 40 days back from today is 26th Dec and I am confident that I returned their paperwork prior to this date. However, 40 days from cashing my cheque gives them until 11th Feb. Do I need to wait longer or have they failed to comply? Any help gratefully appreciated as this is all new to me!! Thank you.

Thanks

Hi. I am sorry, I didnt know where to post this question, or if it was even relelvant on this forum - so I apologise if I am wrong to post such a matter here. I was a board director for a business that went into liquidation in August 2008. On the "About Us" page, my name was listed along with my business email address as a contact. The IP (including web address, online systems, etc) was purchased by another company from the liquidators and the "business" continues to trade under their umbrella. The email address (my name @ the company's domain) is still active and is being collected by a new member of their staff. My name and that email address are still on the site. I am not sure if I have any right to complain about the email address - as it was a business address and not personal. However, I do object to my name still being on the website as I do not want to be associated with this business any longer. Any help greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Thanks for the advice. There have been some developments on this since posting. I requested a copy of the agreement I had signed. The copy they sent had been signed by me, but on behalf of the company as a Director. I had also asked for Subject Access. The finance company chased my again before Christmas and enclosed a copy of the same document with that letter. I have received the SAR information today. There are two copies of the same document, both dated 12th April 2007; on one copy I have signed on behalf of the company and on the other I have signed as an Individual Guarantor and it is witnessed (the "Company Guarantor" page of this agreement is missing). The latter is a copy of a faxed document which I dont remember signing (although the fax number at the top is our old office fax number and the witness was a colleague who was office-based). Both agreements are dated 12th April 2007 and the date on the fax header on the latter copy is 27th April 2007. There are no dates against signatures and a page is missing from one of the documents. Do I have grounds to appeal this? If so what should my next step be? Happy New Year!

Yes. They have not filed a defence and so you can request a default judgement - which means the ruling is in your favour and they will have a CCJ against them. It's not always as easy as just awaiting their cheque though unfortunately but I think once you have the CCJ and payment is not forthcoming you can request a warrant? Not sure what happens with that tho.