Small claims court - what action to take next

boxer16

Sorry... just one more question.

Does anyone know if the defendant has to pay a fee if they appeal?

Edit.... just found a PDF of court fees, never mind!

mikey72

vax2002 wrote: »

The LTD company question is basically about understanding Russian dolls.
LTD companies can be structured to hold assets separately from the accounts.
Having a CCJ against blah de blah company may not be of great use if the company is actually registered as something else, CCJ's against LTD companies are notoriously difficult to enforce and often a search will reveal several already lying on file, unattached and unpaid .
The bigger the company, the more dolls in the system, you can quite easily end up with a CCJ against part of a company with no assets whilst the real assets are held in trust.
It really is a specialised area and whole companies exist that offer specialist investigation in to making sure any debt claims are attached to the right company and division.
Obtaining a CCJ is easy, if you are correct you win, however collecting from an individual is hard, but collecting from a company is usually beyond the layman's reach.

I've had absolutely no problem collecting when I've won. As to transferring assets, a good acccountant isn't cheap, and not many companies want to take that route to avoid a small claims court judgement.

Equaliser123

mikey72 wrote: »

I've had absolutely no problem collecting when I've won. As to transferring assets, a good acccountant isn't cheap, and not many companies want to take that route to avoid a small claims court judgement.

No good accountant would take something like an asset stripping job on. Simply not worth it.

They would advise that any transaction to transfer assets could be set aside at a later date and potentially implicated them as well as the authorising directors of the company.

arcon5

Pheonixing happens all the time for all sorts and sizes of companies. Larger companies involving liquidators are of course much more complicated and less likely, but there isn't always a need to involve liquidators. A good accountant will do the job efficiently & within the law and finding a good accountant willing to would not be difficult.

Equaliser123

arcon5 wrote: »

Pheonixing happens all the time for all sorts and sizes of companies. Larger companies involving liquidators are of course much more complicated and less likely, but there isn't always a need to involve liquidators. A good accountant will do the job efficiently & within the law and finding a good accountant willing to would not be difficult.

Phoenixing is one thing. Asset stripping to defraud creditors is another.

boxer16

Pleased to report we arrived home tonight to a cheque for the full amount. Now I just hope it doesn't bounce!

arcon5

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Phoenixing is one thing. Asset stripping to defraud creditors is another.

Also hard to prove and there's no reason the accounts would show anything other than a legitimate sale of assets at a fair price. If this kind of thing was that difficult it wouldn't be so common and the number of cases where directors have been prosecuted would be much greater.

Equaliser123

arcon5 wrote: »

Also hard to prove and there's no reason the accounts would show anything other than a legitimate sale of assets at a fair price. If this kind of thing was that difficult it wouldn't be so common and the number of cases where directors have been prosecuted would be much greater.

Because if it is a "connected" sale, it is open to challenge.

arcon5

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Because if it is a "connected" sale, it is open to challenge.

Doesn't matter, so long as it was disposed off at a fair value the implications are next to nothing. They would be doing nothin more than a liquidator would anyway.

Ignoring the fact it would be notoriously difficult and expensive to compile a case, even if a court did find the transaction illegal all they would do is reverse the transaction or have the director repay any loss of value.

Then there's of course the time it would take to deal with it if the company director didn't involve liquidators but instead chose to await a creditor to pay to have them wound up themselves.

I'm sorry to say there are very few implications with doing this

Equaliser123

arcon5 wrote: »

Doesn't matter, so long as it was disposed off at a fair value the implications are next to nothing. They would be doing nothin more than a liquidator would anyway.

Ignoring the fact it would be notoriously difficult and expensive to compile a case, even if a court did find the transaction illegal all they would do is reverse the transaction or have the director repay any loss of value.

Then there's of course the time it would take to deal with it if the company director didn't involve liquidators but instead chose to await a creditor to pay to have them wound up themselves.

I'm sorry to say there are very few implications with doing this

Going to have to agree to differ. Not my experience in the corporate finance world post-Enron and post Enterprise Act at all.