anyone had dealings with lombard

54druids

Not even sure this is the right forum but I wonder if anyone can help. Husband had a business which went under 18 months ago. Suddenly dropped a bombshell after everything else that we have lost that he had signed a personal guarantee for the manufacturing machinery of which we had paid just under half the payments. The machinery was finally removed from the premises about 6 months after the business closed by someone acting on lombards behalf. The auctioneer and the liquidator tried several times to contact Lombard as they had 3 offers to buy the machinery but Lombard simply never responded and so the opportunities were lost. About 4 months ago the letters started coming. First one was stating that myself had signed a pg and several calls later they agreed that I hadn't. Next letter was saying they had tried several times to phone us but we have never received a phonecall on our mobiles or landlines. Then my husband rang and asked them for an email address as he wanted several questions, he emailed and they didn't reply to any of his questions. Now it has been passed to a solicitor who is wanting us to come up with a proposal for repayment and still no questions are answered, except that there client has had no record of any correspondence from the liquidator, They also said they were not there to act as a go between and again requested a proposal within 14 days or they will take us to court or try to make us bankrupt or put a charge over our house. It all seems grossly unfair that they expect us to offer payments without firstly giving us a reason why didn't they give permission to sell but also they haven't given us any proof of what they actually sold the machine for. We are not trying to get out of paying but we don't think we should be paying all of their admin charges which are about 5k or paying the excess when we feel we could have got more money if they had just responded to the liquidator in the first place. If anyone can offer any advice, I would be extremely grateful. As you can imagine I am extremely worried about the situation.

Wywth

54druids wrote: »

Not even sure this is the right forum but I wonder if anyone can help. Husband had a business which went under 18 months ago. Suddenly dropped a bombshell after everything else that we have lost that he had signed a personal guarantee for the manufacturing machinery of which we had paid just under half the payments. The machinery was finally removed from the premises about 6 months after the business closed by someone acting on lombards behalf. The auctioneer and the liquidator tried several times to contact Lombard as they had 3 offers to buy the machinery but Lombard simply never responded and so the opportunities were lost. About 4 months ago the letters started coming. First one was stating that myself had signed a pg and several calls later they agreed that I hadn't. Next letter was saying they had tried several times to phone us but we have never received a phonecall on our mobiles or landlines. Then my husband rang and asked them for an email address as he wanted several questions, he emailed and they didn't reply to any of his questions. Now it has been passed to a solicitor who is wanting us to come up with a proposal for repayment and still no questions are answered, except that there client has had no record of any correspondence from the liquidator, They also said they were not there to act as a go between and again requested a proposal within 14 days or they will take us to court or try to make us bankrupt or put a charge over our house. It all seems grossly unfair that they expect us to offer payments without firstly giving us a reason why didn't they give permission to sell but also they haven't given us any proof of what they actually sold the machine for. We are not trying to get out of paying but we don't think we should be paying all of their admin charges which are about 5k or paying the excess when we feel we could have got more money if they had just responded to the liquidator in the first place. If anyone can offer any advice, I would be extremely grateful. As you can imagine I am extremely worried about the situation.

I would suggest your husband goes and sees a solicitor of his own.

How do you know the auctioneer and the liquidator tried several times to contact Lombard as they had 3 offers to buy the machinery.

Where a creditor recovers goods with a view to liquidating those assets to recover a loan, they have an obligation to take reasonable steps to obtain the best price for such goods, hence why they so often put them in an auction.

If the auctioneer were required to contact lombard before the goods could be sold, then it sounds like there was a reserve placed on the goods which was not attained. Often there is no reserve placed, as all the creditor wants is their money and 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. They would continue to chase your husband for the remaining 50% if they only got 50% anyway.
If any reserve was placed, it would usuallly be way, way below the realisable value of a very valuable object.

Likewise, a liquidators job is to obtain the best value for the businesses assets in order to pay back the sums owed to the creditors of the business.

antrobus

My best guess here would be that the husband had a limited company that became insolvent. A liquidator was appointed who arranged for the assets of the company to be put up for auction. However the company had purchased some manufacturing machinery subject to finance from Lombard. Since the manufacturing machinery was security for that loan, Lombard simply repod the kit. If, during the course of the liquidation, certain parties had contacted either the liquidator or the auctioneer expressing an interest in the manufacturing machinery, then neither would have been able to do anything other than pass the info onto Lombard.

I'd suggest that the thing to do would be to obtain a statement from Lombard detailing the extent of the debt, and specifically how much they raised from the sale of the machinery. It's possible that it was sold at an undervalue, and that you might have a cause for complaint. But you really would need a solicitor to look into that for you.

54druids

Thanks for your kind words. Yes it was a limited company, Lombard initially invited us to let them know of any offers to buy the machinery and the liquidator gave us full details of his contact with Lombard with times, dates and names. We have had a statement from them which meant a shortfall of 20k which we clearly don't have. 5k of that was admin charges. What terrifies me is the comments about making us bankrupt or putting a charge on our house if what we can offer is not enough. Think my husband is a bit wary of getting a solicitor involved as it would incur further costs. We had a pg with the bank too but managed to borrow some money to agree a settlement but that is it, we don't have much more to give. The solicitor we previously had was saying because we had settled we could do nothing about the hit on our credit score but my husband phoned the bank and they agreed for that not to happen. Had we just sat back and taken his advice we would have been in a worse situation. Is it just a case of you either pay up or pay enough a month for them to think it is worthwhile not taking you to court. I cant sleep at night for thinking about it all,

Wywth

54druids wrote: »

Thanks for your kind words. Yes it was a limited company, Lombard initially invited us to let them know of any offers to buy the machinery and the liquidator gave us full details of his contact with Lombard with times, dates and names. We have had a statement from them which meant a shortfall of 20k which we clearly don't have. 5k of that was admin charges. What terrifies me is the comments about making us bankrupt or putting a charge on our house if what we can offer is not enough. Think my husband is a bit wary of getting a solicitor involved as it would incur further costs. We had a pg with the bank too but managed to borrow some money to agree a settlement but that is it, we don't have much more to give. The solicitor we previously had was saying because we had settled we could do nothing about the hit on our credit score but my husband phoned the bank and they agreed for that not to happen. Had we just sat back and taken his advice we would have been in a worse situation. Is it just a case of you either pay up or pay enough a month for them to think it is worthwhile not taking you to court. I cant sleep at night for thinking about it all,

If you own a house which has at least £20k of equity in it, then you do have the means to repay the loan.

If you don't have at least £20k of equity in your home, then there would be little point in Lombard putting a second charge on the proiperty; I guess they would then push for bankruptcy if repayment of the loan was not forthcoming.

Sorry, this may not be what you wanted to hear, but I think you need to start waking up to the reality of the situation.

stressed_mummy

54druids just tried to pm you but your mailbox is full