Unable to pay creditors & me & my wife's Online business has slowed.

wjkharris · 9 June 2017 at 6:33PM

Dear all,
I have been trading on ebay since 2004 & my wife also has an ebay shop. For some unknown reason, sales on both shops have taken a turn badly in terms of sales. The sales have been dropping so much on both shops that we are almost not making anything. We used to pack about 120 plus items each day & now it has gone down to 15 plus pieces of orders on a good day. My feedback is good, accounts are in good standing & nothing is wrong with the accounts or goods. Its just that people are not buying. I though that it may be a reason due to uncertain political reasons & the pound fluctuating. I may be wrong. But I am unable to keep up with my creditors as we are earning so little.

I have contacted many companies to do an IVA. Looks like they are doing a business & wants us to sign up with them where the figures they come up as repayment cannot still be met. I do not know if they get paid a fixed sum or a commission for each IVA they do. But they are not thinking of our situation. They say that a creditor called Zopa never negotiates & that they will not agree to the figures I come up with.

Can I just not pay them for a while till we get the situation under control? We still have not done the IVA or anything. The creditors are calling day & night & sending letters. Can we just ignore them?

We have a 20 year old son living with us who is at uni. I say he is living with us. But we moved from London to Preston to live with him because he wanted to live with us & also study plus we could not let him go as we are a very close family. We do not have any extended family & the only family member we had was his grandad that also sadly passed away. He got money from his grand dads will. But we have used all his money to buy goods to keep the ebay shop going & just for us to live. Also we used his money to purchase household goods as well with his permission. We are a very close family & when it comes to sharing, we do not have any trouble. We also have a 10 year old as well. The house tenancy is under me & my wife. I have spoken to my landlord who is willing to change the tenancy to my sons name. If the bailiffs turn up, can we say that the stuff is our sons & that we are just living with him & that we do not have any possessions. I have a car under finance & my wife has an old 2001 car on her name.

Can bailiffs take my little sons toys, PS3, TV screen etc?
Can they take any of the stuff in the house or the 2 vehicles?

Any help or advice will be kindly appreciated.

IAmWales · 9 June 2017 at 8:02PM

Is there a reason why both of you cannot find paid employment, disability for instance? From what you have said the business is no longer viable.

sourcrates · 9 June 2017 at 8:29PM

Hi,

Bailiffs are a long way off.

Please do your research, a creditor must take you to court and obtain a CCJ, then you must fail to pay that CCJ before a bailiff can be employed.

Even then they cannot break into private property, you simply don't let them in, that's it.

Give one of the free debt charities a ring, there are other options than IVA's.

-taff · 9 June 2017 at 8:56PM

get in touch with the national debtline for some advice.

Yu have options, but it depends n what you want to do.

You cannot just ignore the letters otherwise things will happen without you having a say in them.

I would ake a list of all the debts you have, and post an SOA here so people can hel with your budget. If your business is failing or has failed, you could wrap it up for now or keep it as a small sideline while you look for other methods of income.

wjkharris · 9 June 2017 at 9:55PM

Hi IAmWales,
Thanks for the reply. My wife was diagnosed with AS (Ankylosing spondylitis) which is a long-term (chronic) condition in which the spine and other areas of the body become inflamed & can fuse together causing unimaginable pain. She is only 36 years old. Unfortunately facing problems is not new to us.

She helps so much with the business & it is becoming more & more difficult now. So I do most of the house chores & tend to the younger son. So finding a full time job is difficult. I now get Child tax credit & working tax credit.

wjkharris · 9 June 2017 at 10:02PM

Hi sourcrates,
Thanks for the reply. I thought that when there is a CCJ in place, the bailiffs can smash your door & take your things off you. Drag you off your vehicle & take the vehicle as well. This is the first time this has happened to us & we have just started doing research into what our options are.

sourcrates · 9 June 2017 at 10:06PM

wjkharris wrote: »

Hi sourcrates,
Thanks for the reply. I thought that when there is a CCJ in place, the bailiffs can smash your door & take your things off you. Drag you off your vehicle & take the vehicle as well. This is the first time this has happened to us & we have just started doing research into what our options are.

Absolute rubbish chap !!!

They can only enter through an unlocked door, and you can deny them access.
If your vehicle is outside they can clamp it, but if it's on finance, they cannot take it.

Get some proper advice, and it will never progress to that stage.

wjkharris · 14 June 2017 at 9:01PM

My house that we rent has a porch door & then the 2nd door into the house. The porch door does not have a lock. But the 2nd door is always locked. If the debt collectors enter the porch, does that mean that they have entered my property or do they have to properly enter the house through the locked 2nd door?

Can they break into the vehicle & take it by managing to start it. The reason is, my wife who is having medical conditions keep on looking out of the windows all day & night & is getting scared.

I am looking into changing the log book into my sons name so that he will be the new owner. I have also told my landlord to get the tenancy agreement changed to my sons name as then it will be a case that we are living in his house & not the other way around.

Geoff1963 · 15 June 2017 at 12:41AM

I've heard of bailiffs taking a doormat, because that was as far as they got, so getting into the porch shouldn't mean anything. I'm not sure about the idea of selling everything to someone, so everything is on finance when the bailiffs arrive.

National_Debtline · 15 June 2017 at 10:33AM

Hi wjkharris

I understand bailiffs can be a worrying thought, but in terms of credit debts, unless you have a defaulted CCJ they cannot be used. If no court action has been taken try not worry about that at this stage. Your first step is to consider the viability of your business, you can get free specialist advice on that from Business Debtline https://www.businessdebtline.org/.

If the business does not continue trading there may be other benefits you can claim, for example Employment and Support Allowance if your partner is unable to work. She may also be able to get Personal Independence Payments depending on the nature of her illness, and that is regardless of whether the business continues to trade.

IVA companies will make a large amount of money from the fees they charge you so be cautious about this option. As advised above, complete a SOA so you can see what your income and outgoings are, and what is available for your debts. This, along with the type of debts and amount you owe, will help determine what your best debt options are.

Susie
@natdebtline

Angry_kittens · 15 June 2017 at 10:35AM

wjkharris wrote: »

I am looking into changing the log book into my sons name so that he will be the new owner. I have also told my landlord to get the tenancy agreement changed to my sons name as then it will be a case that we are living in his house & not the other way around.

As stated on the Logbook the V5 is not proof of ownership, just who the registered keeper is. Proof of ownership would be the original invoice for the sale of the car. The same applies for changing tenancy to your sons name, that doesn't proof everything belongs to him, original receipts and invoices for every item are the valid proof. If you found them in your house (which as pointed out, you have to let them in or leave a window or door unlocked) the onus would be on you to proof the items do not belong to you. They could seize the car assuming the invoice is in your name, irrespective of what the logbook says.

That being said I have no idea how often County Court Bailiffs escalate that far, others here may be able to comment on that. Again as others have pointed out, you are a long long way from that stage, a CCJ is needed before anything like that can happen. You should work on stopping it getting that far.

Long time lurker on the DFW board, not in debt myself but find the posts interesting. I'm no expert, but have picked up bits from watching various TV shows about high court sheriffs and looking into their rules and allowed practice. So just wanted to correct that misconception in case it bites you later!

Unable to pay creditors & me & my wife's Online business has slowed.

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