Major issue with a debt... court now involved

Mike_St_Helens

Hi... Thanks for reading this, and any helpwould be great.

long story cut short 1st. My partner and I entered into a lease with a brewery (20 Years) after false promises, increasing rent, beer and not even making enough money to eat we had to close the pub as we were in such a mess personally and the business could no longer support itself. We had spent well over 80k on the business and our credit status is now in a state of disrepair !. Anyways...we left the pub, the brewery took the keys back( 6months ago) and we heard no more...... Until yesterday:eek:

We did leave the pub owing a few brewery bills and rent arrears ( @ £800 a week taking £2k a week no wonder ! ), we have now recieved a court summons for £25k. They have added the beer bills, insurance, costs and rent arrears and rent from the date we closed the pub to date.. (even though the brewery opened the pub 2 weeks later and now someone else has the lease) . so i prob agree about £6k of the debt technically as we did just walk away... bearing in mind we refurbed the pub, kitted the kitchen etc etc and spent well over 25k on making the pub safe and sound.

What shall we do... do we just leave it and ignore, agree but dispute the amount, dispute the whole amount... i really dont know. We cant go bankrupt due to our new jobs. we certainly dont have £25k... never mind £25 !

any advice would be great.
:beer:

Toto

Is this 25k on top of the 80k? Oh Mike, I really do bloody feel for you!

I would dispute the whole amount; make them give you an actual breakdown of what they think is owing. Of course it will be in their favour. Then dispute it line by line.

I don't think (I might be wrong) that a judge would be likely to make you bankrupt if that meant you both losing your jobs. I also believe that if you are making attempts to offer repayments, the creditor would have a hard time getting it into court. So don't worry about being forced bankrupt.

I would think the brewery are trying it on, it sounds like they are bloodsuckers to be honest, who probably make a living ruining peoples lives by this kind of behaviour. Just remember if it does go to court they have to justify every penny charged, and it sounds to me like you have a good defense to the entire bill.

Mike_St_Helens

Thanks Toto... This brewery are well known in the field for this....

Head up high we will deal with it... My problem is I dont know the technical terms etc etc... we have a form that we have to fill in that has all sorts of do you dispute this and thats on it and im not sure how to fill it in yet sounding confident !

At the end we do know they cant take what we dont have and we know a judge would not take a roof and job from us.

Ta !

Prudent

This seems massively unjust, given what you put in and the short time it took to get someone else to take over. Could you put all these figures down and make an offer of a monthly repayment based on the 6k?

Mike_St_Helens

It is truly unjust ! believe me !!! they are a harsh cold company.

Im in a dmp so dont know where i stant about asking for monthly payments...

thanks

Toto

I would certainly speak to your dmp counsellor about this, but I don't think I would be happy handing the debt over without you maintaining control over it.

I would say the new kitchen etc is more than compensation for the 6k and if it isn't I would think about a counter claim for all of your investement into refurbishing the pub.

Brassic

Did you own the lease? If so did they not take the kitchen into account when they did the valuation? Did you get an independent company to come in and do a stock take and inventory at the end?

If you sold the lease then obviously they can't charge you for things that were accrued after you sold it.

When I met him my husband owned the lease on a pub which as a business ran into the ground so I know where you're coming from, breweries can be absolute s*ds.

Good luck with getting it sorted, I'm sure you'll get loads of help on here.

Mike_St_Helens

Hi... we are nieve... we just left the pub and gave the keys back... no handover as such. we had an inventory at the start but the F&F was included kind of for free... so i dont think i can counterclaim....

stock... none, as said we just left at nil stock and handed the keys back...with a nice fresh refurb'd pub for the blood suckers... can i ask you the name of the bloodsuckers of your BF ?
x

Toto

Don't rule out a counterclaim. I think it's better to go for any angle and have the courts or who ever tell you that it isn't possible, if it gets that far. Do you have any receipts or proof of cost of the F&F?

Mike_St_Helens

We are disputing a large amount of it, however if i counter claim for all what we spent then we start involving invoices, vat etc etc and then it could get messy !

Any advice would be cool.... However told payplan today and they are fab you know, simply said send the documents to us and we will do it all for you and pass it to our solicitors !

Toto

If you were VAT registered and you included the refit in your VAT returns then there should be no problem, in fact it helps your case because you claimed it as a legitimate business expense.

In all honesty it sounds like more bullying from the brewery (as if they haven't had enough out of you).

I'm glad payplan are suggesting using their solicitors; they will probably get the matter dropped. These kinds of invoices float around the business world all the time, usually when one business falls out with another. We had an issue with another company last year and it got a little heated, they then invoiced us for some nonsense. Long story but basically this company employed my OH before we set up in business and they got scared because we grew so quickly and they worried we would steal gigs (which we never have done and never would do). We hired some gear from them, they invoiced us for some damage to a radio mic, in actual fact we pointed out this mic was dodgy while in their workshop, but it still ‘somehow’ ended up in our order.. The invoice they sent was for a total of £3,000 I basically told them to sod off. A few letters, phone calls and emails flew around before they dropped the whole silliness. My advice is really to stand firm and don't be bullied into paying anything unless you feel it is 100% justified. Remember it is up to them to prove the content of the invoice is valid and legitimate, not for you to prove otherwise.

It does sound like the brewery is just trying it on because you left the pub. But, it sucks because you have enough on your plate right now without all of this.