Some advice please

nebakanezer

Hi everyone. I'll try to keep this as short as I can but basically myself and my brother took out a business loan to expand our business in which we gave a personal guarantee. We were a timber merchant and fencing manufacturer. Business was going relatively well until basically covid just decimated the timber industry. Some of our main selling products increased by 300%, and availability became impossible to manage. And then it became more expensive to buy the timber needed to make a fence panel, than to buy one from the larger outlets.

We had no choice but to cease trading, we paid off everything we could, suppliers and rent etc but we were left with this one loan which was what's called a cash advance, with liberis. The repayments come from a percentage of card payments with no option of physically paying the loan back. So when we had to cease trading we had no card machine and effectively defaulted and the debt has been passed to Azzuro associates.

During the past few years my wife has been very poorly physically and mentally, emergency hysterectomy and severe mental health problems as a result, which led to sectioning. We don't have much money and have always just about got by paying normal bills.

We have no other debt and do not spend frivolously, no credit cards or store cards etc. I have no assets except my car which is so old it can't even be independently valued. My only pair of jeans are roughly 10 years old from primark, we don't eat out, we don't drink, we have 2 children, and the business provided just a very basic wage.

The debt is for 30k between myself and my brother, but my brother owns his home which is the main concern.

I've read a lot about managing things yourself as opposed to an IVA etc so I would just like some advice on this. I have spoken to payplan but I am a little sceptical about an IVA as I have heard a few horror stories, with payplan also.

I have done all my income and expenditure and could afford to pay around £150 per month, maybe offering that over 5 years for my half of the responsibility? It equates to aroound 75% of my half of the responsibility, but i dont know how this would work, payplan went through it and advised an IVA, but for the full amount of 30k.

I am in work now as I am a skilled tradesman. My brother is also seeking advice but as I have stated, he is in a very different position to me. He is very worried and also his wife is unaware of the situation and the house is jointly owned between them.

Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated, I just feel like the most sensible thing for both myself and the creditors would be to put a payment plan in place/make an offer to them.

Azzuro have likely bought the debt for a fraction of the outstanding amount and I'm willing to pay back as much as I can which would go straight to them. Thanks in advance.

eve1006

You might be able to claim a director redundancy if you were on the payroll for over 2 years. You can take the test here to see if you are eligible on businesshelpline.uk website