They're taking my business :-(

sortingmyshitout

** resolved - see post #33**

I've made myself bankrupt, as it seemed the best way of dealing with my debts (mostly unpaid taxes, but also some credit cards etc from 6+ years ago). My total debts were on the order of £50k or so.

I felt I was quite safe to do so, as I don't have any assets as such to speak of. I had a niggling doubt in my head that the website I run as my main source of income could be considered an asset, but I figured they would never want to take that away as it's MY MAIN SOURCE OF INCOME.

After an hour's interview today the OR and I agreed that over 3 years I am to pay back a couple of hundred every month. Fine.

He then dropped the bombshell via email that my website is now the property of the OR, and that I need to hand over the registration certificate for it and make "a reasonalbe offer" to buy it back from them.

Obviously I have no money with which to buy it back. I think the implication is that I'm supposed to beg a friend/relation to buy it back for me. I understand why, they want to get some money out of me for my creditors, and this seems like a good way of them doing it.

But I don't think I know anyone who would be in a position to make "a reasonable offer". How much are they going to want? It makes a profit of about £20k a year, which is why I've now applied for bankruptcy as I thought I was making enough money to stand on my own feet and pay taxes like a real person, if I could get a fresh start, which I thought was the point of a bankruptcy :-(

Then there's this bit: "if we are not in receipt of a satisfactory offer the Official Receiver may consider closing the website or realising it for the benefit of creditors as they do not want to be liable for any costs associated with it."

I'm of the opinion that without me the website is worth very little, as the admin system I've rigged together over the years is far from user-friendly, it'd need someone with a fairly unique combination of technical skills and interest in my niche to run it, and even then there would be a lot of work to be done to make it more usable by an outsider. And would they want to put in 12hr+ days every day to make £20k profit a year... probably not!

So, any advice, what can I do?

This website is a passion of mine, and also my income. I know I'm very fortunate that my job is something I LOVE doing, and maybe as a bankruptee I don't deserve to be that fortunate... but I really don't know what I'll do if they take it away from me. It's been my life for years, and aside from my wife is the only thing in the world that I care about even slightly :-(

silvercar

My knowledge is sketchy, but how is your business split between the domain name and the work that you do for it.

I suppose I'm asking if you could relocate your business to a different website and leave the OR take control of the domain name. How much is the domain name worth without your input.

Could you start a new website now, with a divert from the old website for a few weeks and encourage all your followers etc to update their bookmark to the new site?

sortingmyshitout

My knowledge on this is thin as well. I've long disliked my domain name, and wanted to change it, but we all know a re-branding under a different name is risky...

...but if I did want to, legally, could I do that? Do they not essentially own all of the IP, all of the code? I feel they must?

I think the suggestion seems pretty sketchy at best, and probably downright illegal at worst. Anyone else care to weigh in?

TakeAwayKing_2

You can’t just take the customers and trade from one site and transfer it to another site - you will get in a whole heap of trouble if you try that without first settling with the OR

If you are not in a position to do so, hard though it may be, perhaps it is time to start a new chapter and find a job that you could enjoy.

spadoosh

Offer 50p.

Probably about reasonable for a website that they dont wish to maintain and will become absolutely worthless should they choose not to.

You said it yourself they need you to maintain it, youre not going to do that if its not yours and they arent paying you. Theyve said they wont maintain it themselves and you think it will be hard for them to do that anyway.

It sounds like youre the only asset for the website. Without you its worth what it costs to keep up. Youd have to be quite commited and not financially motivated to buy something that will require you working 12 hours days to recieve £20k a year. That isnt minimum wage.

sortingmyshitout

I have asked for a bit of guidance from them as to what constitutes a reasonable offer. I'm scared that given a £20k annual profit they'll be wanting at least that, if not 2-3 times that. But you're right that I don't make minimum wage, so once you take out the cost of someone running it the profit is essentially £0.

I love it, so I don't care, but they'd probably struggle to find someone else who felt the same.

Offering 50p seems like it would be taking the !!!! though, they clearly want to use this as leverage to get me to get a loved one to cough up some serious cash, don't they?

fwor

If you take out the emotional side and look at it rationally, it's just an asset, and it's the OR's job to make as much of that asset for your creditors as possible. Make an offer that's not derisory and see what the reply is.

My advice would not be to offer 50p, because that would obviously not reflect in any way on what value it has to you - and they would know that immediately.

sortingmyshitout

My thoughts exactly. So would £1k (doable) be enough to be considered reasonable and of interest to them, or are they more likely to be looking at £10k+ (not doable).

One thought is that if enough capital is needed I could attempt to crowd-fund it from the site's audience. Obviously a bit embarrassing, but I think I could live with it. Though if it doesn't work then that's even more embarrassing!

PasturesNew

As you say - to earn £20k/year will often mean you're paying yourself 50p/hour because you're actually working on it, spotting trends, tweaking, writing etc 24/7 ..... it's worth nothing to others .... the only things that potentially have a value are any subscriber list and any domain name. So if those two aren't much good it's got a low resale value.

Could you start again? Or is the current website "the one boat that can sail this journey"?

spadoosh

fwor wrote: »

If you take out the emotional side and look at it rationally, it's just an asset, and it's the OR's job to make as much of that asset for your creditors as possible. Make an offer that's not derisory and see what the reply is.

My advice would not be to offer 50p, because that would obviously not reflect in any way on what value it has to you - and they would know that immediately.

But that is making it emotional.

No one values a business on what it means to the owner, you can argue about intangible assets a little bit but on a website earning £20k a year, hardly the millions of pounds of goodwill built up on a forum like this.

Value it as a business not what its worth to you. As a business it will be worth very little. Everyone knows websites need to be kept update and maintained, once theyre not footfall drops and so does revenue.

https://www.worthofweb.com/calculator/

Put it in there and see what it comes back with. Then offer 10% of that price as its in receivership.

sortingmyshitout

Thanks. Sites like that one are pretty (ha ha...) worthless though. Indeed it suggests the value of my website is $3k and that I could expect to make $6 a day from it.