They're taking my business :-(

245

Comments

  • spadoosh
    spadoosh Posts: 8,732 Forumite
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    sortingmyshitout wrote: »
    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.

    They are but thats all there pretty much is to go off.

    You can try calculating the business value using the books but i suspect it will give a similar low value especially when you take in to account a (proper) wage for you.
  • silvercar
    silvercar Posts: 46,955 Ambassador
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    Maybe you actually need to explain to the OR that the website has limited value without your work. The OR is not meant to put you out of business, but merely to collect any assets.
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  • ACG
    ACG Posts: 23,726 Forumite
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    Of course the business has a value, you have customers, you possibly have stock, you have a domain name those tend to have some value.

    No wanting to sound rude, but the way the website is run is irrelevant. Someone could snap it up and re-do everything behind the scenes to automate a lot of it or at least make it less labour intensive.

    I say this as someone who used to buy websites where people were earning £5-30 a month, make some alterations and get it earning £200-300 a month before selling it on elsewhere. Personally, I think they might want more than a grand - but I suppose under the circumstances where you are basically on your a**e then they can not really be expecting you to come back with an offer of £5-10k.

    I am a little surprised they can take away your job, I thought they would have to leave you with it as its presumably along the same lines as tools to a tradesman? But if they can do it, then you need to come up with a decent offer.

    I would personally speak to them over the phone, you can tend to get more of an indication from the tone of peoples voices.
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  • fwor
    fwor Posts: 6,809 Forumite
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    spadoosh wrote: »
    But that is making it emotional.

    No one values a business on what it means to the owner

    It's not. It's simply a recognition that the OR has a responsibility to get the maximum "value" out of an asset for the creditors.

    The creditors lose nothing if the OR takes it away and the OP has no means of future income, but they can (potentially) gain a significant amount if they can negotiate a value that accounts for the fact that the OP values it and can make a living from it.

    If they accepted 50p they would clearly not be seen to be doing anything useful in that respect.
  • LaLaLa34
    LaLaLa34 Posts: 29 Forumite
    With no income, how will they expect you to pay into an IPA at a couple of hundred pounds a month as mentioned in your opening post?
  • sortingmyshitout
    sortingmyshitout Posts: 25 Forumite
    LaLaLa34 wrote: »
    With no income, how will they expect you to pay into an IPA at a couple of hundred pounds a month as mentioned in your opening post?

    Well, quite, that's why I thought my livelihood might be "safe" before I went down this route...
  • sortingmyshitout
    sortingmyshitout Posts: 25 Forumite
    silvercar wrote: »
    Maybe you actually need to explain to the OR that the website has limited value without your work. The OR is not meant to put you out of business, but merely to collect any assets.

    I have put that point of view across, but as someone else said his job is to extract some money from me, and they do technically now own the asset that is my website. Even if the asset is worthless to someone else, it's not worthless to me, and they naturally want me to ask someone to foot the bill for my mistakes :-(
  • 331Blue-tits
    331Blue-tits Posts: 3 Newbie
    Bankruptcy not my strong point. But have a look at the technical manual and s 283/308 of IA 1986. Excluded assets (those that don't vest in the OR) include items reasonable to carry on business or vocation. Is the website reasonable for your business? I would argue it is. Also if it wasn't, surely the reasonable replacement criteria would apply. And that would be difficult with a website . . How would you pay your IPA anyway without your website income? £200 per month is a lot for the OR to lose for a potentially almost worthless website. (or is that £200 just for the first year with nil tax code ).? I would definitely argue the website has no value of its own.
  • Spendless
    Spendless Posts: 24,148 Forumite
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    sortingmyshitout wrote: »
    I have put that point of view across, but as someone else said his job is to extract some money from me, and they do technically now own the asset that is my website. Even if the asset is worthless to someone else, it's not worthless to me, and they naturally want me to ask someone to foot the bill for my mistakes :-(
    And what if you haven't got anyone to ask or everyone you do ask says 'No'?
  • silvercar
    silvercar Posts: 46,955 Ambassador
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    Trying to think of analogies.

    If you were a luxury mini cab driver, would they take the car and suggest that you buy a cheaper car and become a standard mini cab driver? Quite probably.

    If you leased a black cab, would they let you continue the lease? Quite probably.

    If you were a tradesman with a van, they would value the van take it off you and allow you sufficient to buy a cheaper van.

    Contrarily, if you own a rental property, even with no equity, they take the rent and don't allow you anything to pay the mortgage.

    Whatever they do with this website, they can't force you to work for it. So no way can they say they are taking control but expect you to do whatever is necessary to maintain it's value. That in itself must limit it's value. I suspect you may have an OR that doesn't understand the separation of the site alone and the work behind it. Maybe the website address has a perceived value.
    I'm a Forum Ambassador on The Coronavirus Boards as well as the housing, mortgages and student money saving boards. I volunteer to help get your forum questions answered and keep the forum running smoothly. Forum Ambassadors are not moderators and don't read every post. If you spot an illegal or inappropriate post then please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com (it's not part of my role to deal with this). Any views are mine and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.com.
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