Investor Says He Is Not Liable after Selling His Company

atush

have you been to the CAB? And asked about legal Aid?

maximumme

xylophone wrote: »

But did the company ever own the properties?

I have checked the land registry and the properties were purchased in HIS name. There is no mention of the company on there.

maximumme

atush wrote: »

have you been to the CAB? And asked about legal Aid?

The average age of the people who work at
my local CAB must be 87. The last time I was there I ended up giving THEM advice. A solicitor I spoke to on the phone told me that legal aid for this wasn't available any more.

doughnutmachine

tbh i think the chances of getting money back are minimal. you could do a deal with a lawyer that he gets back 50% of any sum recovered. i honestly think paying a lawyer to act for you will be a waste of money.

you could also try and embarass him into paying up. maybe make a facebook profile detailing your story - then contact all his friends on facebook

Ifts

maximumme wrote: »

The average age of the people who work at my local CAB must be 87.

I wouldn't write off the CAB just because the advisers tend to be old.
Many of the people who work there are volunteers, I admit a lot of them are old but thats because they are retired or semi-retired and can spare the time to help others.

On the few occasions Ive asked them for help/advice, they have exceeded my expectations (esp as its free, you can make a contribution if you want to). On one occasion they helped me take on an Insurance company after my car was written off, with their help I managed to get an extra £3-4K on top of what the insurance company was offering me to begin with.

maximumme

I don't mean to disrespect my local CAB, but whenever I have been there looking for advice they simply look on the internet for answers, something I could do myself.

le_loup

maximumme wrote: »

The average age of the people who work at my local CAB must be 87.

So they may be wise enough not to give money to scam artists!

magpiecottage

I think you need to report this here.

princeofpounds

hanks everyone. What is not clear to me, how can he sell the limited company, the company is dissolved, but he still owns, rents out and is making money from the properties I invested in? Is this legal?

Hi again.

The short answer is; no-one here knows what he did. I can think of several plausible ways that someone could end up in the situation you have outlined, but you have to be aware that anything he has told you could be a lie. There may never even have been a limited company.

- He might just be telling you a story about a limited company.
- He might have had a limited company, but the money never really went near it, rather straight into his pocket.
- He might have had a limited company and sold some of the assets into his personal name at an suppressed value.
- He may have always had the properties and simply invested the money into refurbishments.
- He might have sold the limited company without telling the new owner about the liability to you, or the supposed asset of the interest in his properties gained by refurbishing them.
- He might have sold it to a friend, who arranged the whole thing whilst trying to make it appear to be an arms-length decision.

All this, and you may never have even legally made a loan to this company but rather to him, and this is just a red herring to make you give up.

Your job is to get advice and work this out.

Ignore people advising you to forget about it. Whilst there may come a point where you have to do that, it is certainly not the present time. From what you have outlined there is a strong chance you gave him a loan as an individual, rather than to the company. That will be easy to pursue if he is a property owner. There is also a strong chance that he committed fraud, but we cannot tell you if his actions meet the criteria for criminal behavious because that would depend on exactly what he DID, not just what he claims he did and you think he did at the moment.

The situation where this is not likely to be worth pursuing is if you lent the money to a limited company, that was run above-board, but happened to make poor business decisions and so went bankrupt. Then it is hard to get past the limited liability, but I don't think anyone can tell you if you are in that situation unless they are a) an expert and b) have access to all the evidence.

So go get an initial consultation with a lawyer, and/or go to the police to report a fraud.

LittleVoice

maximumme wrote: »

Thanks everyone. What is not clear to me, how can he sell the limited company, the company is dissolved, but he still owns, rents out and is making money from the properties I invested in? Is this legal?

But you've said the company never owned the properties, so the company has nothing to do with his continuing to own and let the properties.

You have said you sent the money to the company's bank account, the company never owned the property so, on the face of it, you did not invest in the properties.

However, your email exchanges may show that the funds were indeed intended for the man and his properties and that has to be your hope. You need someone to review the actual exchange.