Help! Client about to go bust.

[tillyfunk]

Hello all,

 

A client of mine who owes me £2730 and my small Ltd company £5500 seems about to go bust. I am a freelancer who has gone Ltd, he owes me from before I went Ltd and after.

 

He also owes countless other freelancers, some of them over £5k but most about £1.5k. None of us have seen any money in months and he has been paid for the events we worked on. As far as anyone can see he has no source of income and will be bust when his rent and rates are for payment in December.

 

What he does have is assets. We would be happy to take some of these and start our own hire operation so we can continue to work and slowly pay everyone back (long term solution as he will leave a big gap in our diaries).

 

Payment would obviously be preferable, he clearly does not have the funds though and I suspect he is close to insolvent.

 

Having been on the receiving end of an insolvent company in administration before (I didn't see a penny of £4k) I suspect if we don't do something before he goes under allot of freelancers won't get paid. There is also the possibility he will try to sign the assets over to someone else before he goes bust. There seems to be quite a complex company structure in place.

 

I have spoken to the union BECTU and they gave a very bleak image, saying that everyone would have to go to the small claims court and he would probably be bust before it got anywhere. That and they were not willing to get involved in any kind of joint action as not everyone is a member.

 

Do we have any options here? Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[rebel11]

Hi Tilly

 

That is clearly unacceptable, it might be worth setting up a thread in the legal issues forum, the other thing you can do is

speak to a solicitor who deals in that particular area, an initial meeting shouldn't cost anything.