Apolologies if this is the incorrect place or not valid here at all. December 08 I bought a new machine through Lombard Asset Finance. Lombard were reccomended by my Nat West account manager. Prior to this I used an independent finance company with no issues for 18 years. I was advised Lombard would be cheaper. In actual fact the interest rate may have been cheaper but when you add on document fees that are undisclosed until the point of signing and then see settlement penalties, the actual costs are far higher. The other side of the coin is they have no interest in whether your business survives or not. They are only interested in making money from you. At no time has my company missed payments. To the events. The machine was defective on arrival. As this was now my only production machine this was a serious issue. Over a period of 3-4 months, UK engineers attempted to repair the machine and engineers were flown in from Korea to make modifications. Combined with the recession my business was decimated as you can imagine. Major failures continued to occur weekly and still occur a year later. The machine does not meet its performance specifications by a country mile and is 25% less effecient than the machinery it replaced. I made as much effort as possible to achieve a resolution with the supplier. In July I was offered two machines which had been out of production for 3 years in replacement. I took this offer as an acceptance of fault so immediately went to my solicitor who then began a claim agaisnt them. My financial position was dire and as can be expected the companies was also but we were still paying our bills and I am still paying my bills. Just. We had a case that looked as though it was winnable one but could not raise the £25000 that the solicitor required to go to court. As we know there is no garauntee off winning either. It was decided to take an approach of trying to get an upgraded offer to current machinery and some compensationl. £5000 later we had an offer on the table. 2 new current machines and compensation of £5000. Obviously the £5000 didn't begin to cover any losses but it was better than nothing. We accepted. One proviso was that Lombard agreed to change their documents removing any charge over the existing machine and replace the charge with the new machines. I attempted to get this agreement in November 09 and it was agreed verbally and I was told this was common practise. I was unable to get this in writing as I was told by the account manager it was not Lombards policy to put anything in writing other than agreements. This was then referred back to my solicitor who then recieved an email on 17th of November 09 confirming that this would be done. At this point I believed it was all over. Sorted. The new machines were due to arrive on the 11th of Jan 2010. On Jan 2nd 2010 I recieved a letter from the supplier asking for conformation of the document change from Lombards. This was immediately reffered to my solicitor who then contacted Lombards. The original account manager who agreed in writing was now on maternity leave and it it was not until 3.00pm on the 6th Jan he managed to get hold of someone who was able to handle my account. All was agreed verbally and we had to wait until the following morning for conformation after he spoken to his superior. The next morning a major problem. They were now renaging on the deal and would not agree to exchange the machines on the documents but they would offer a new finance deal. Obviously this would incurr a whole raft of new charges and penalties for terminating the existing agreement. This obviously was not acceptable to me. The mathmatetics are as follows Situation Now Purchase price £48,000 Outstanding Balance £38,267.26 Current Value £10,000.00 Existing machine. I believe it would be unlikely to achieve this at auction as nobody would want it. It is now a known industry fact that this is useless type of machine Deficit £28,267.26 The new machines have an invoice value of £31.500 each and have been invoiced to Lombard as a zero value invoice as requested by Lombard. Situation as would have been expected on Jan 11th 2010 Outstanding Balance £38,267.26 New Value £63,000.00 Credit £24,732.74 Obviously this shores up Lombards position and my position. A win win situation you may think. On friday the 8th which seems to be Lomards policy they then make it even more difficult by putting hurdles in the way of a new finance agreement. After doing several trips back and forth to my solicitor during the day, we still haven't got a true settlement figure or any agreement. I then recieve a message that unless this is resolved by end of play I will be liable for transportation costs from Korea for the two machines, hotels and flights for two Korean engineers for 4 days, 4 days of a UK engineers time, and cancellation fees for the UK haulage company. I am guessing at approxcimately £7000. Lombard then come back saying they can do nothing further as the underwriters are based in Redhill and unbeknown to this account manager the office has closed down. Great. I had been with the previous finance company for 18 years and would consider us friends. I immediately contacted this guy who immediately agreed by telephone to finance the new machines thereby settling Lombard. An email was then sent to Lombard and the supplier and to accelerate things I was advised by my solicitor to contact the suppliers directly and let them know what was going on. There immediate response was that under no circumstance would they do business with this man via normal business practise and it would have to resolved via solicitors. As you can imagine this situation is stressful to say the least. Quite possibly terminal. There is simply not the finance in place to pay the charges I will now inccur. I cannot continue to pay solicitors at £400 per hour. The paddle has long gone. To crown it all my solicitor has gone on holiday today for a week. I am truly struggling to find a way forward from this. Some advise would be much appreciated.