Trade Account Personal Guarantee

[bumblebee89]

Hello everyone. My first post on here but have been reading various posts for months. I have a complicated one so bear with me but in summary, I am being pursued by a supplier (not a builders merchant) after my company ceased trading as they claim I have given them a personal guarantee.

 

Five years ago, I opened a trading account on Pro-Forma and filled in a 'Trading Account Application Form'. At the time, I was a sole trader and signed a personal guarantee. That's the nature of sole trader - no protection. Six months later, I formed a LTD company and transferred stock etc over to this company. I informed the supplier of this change but they never asked me to fill in new forms for the company.

 

So the forms they have are from when I was a sole trader and there is no mention of the LTD company anywhere on the forms. In their letters, the debt is in the name of the LTD company.

 

Last year, this supplier and myself had a joint venture and I signed a new 'Terms of Trading' for this separate venture as Director of the company. This venture was being treated differently and separately to the core business and so a new form was signed where I gave a personal guarantee as a co Director.

 

It gets more complicated. They have amended the original form from five years ago and added a tick in the box next to 'LTD Company' as the legal entity. The original was 'Sole Trader' - I didn't tick this second box. So in summary, they have added the agreement page meant for the separate entity to the initial account application form in the name of the sole trader, and ticked the LTD company box - without me knowing.

 

Any idea as to where I stand?I would never have knowingly signed a PG in the name of the company for the entire company and its debt. As I said, they have taken a form and added it on to an old business account application form. The one document has dates that are 3 years apart.

 

The wording of the paragraph is as follows:

 

"In consideration of *Supplier*agreeing to open a trade account with the company named overleaf, the undersigned directors of the company hereby agree that should the company fail to meet its obligations of payments for goods, they shall take responsibility for the same"

 

This paragraph is written above the area where you sign but does not have a title, heading, bold writing etc. I think this is incredibly misleading, given the docuement is titled 'Account Application Form'