Are you embroiled in a dispute with another party? Do you feel it is heading nowhere but to the court? The obvious problems with court intervention include the uncertainty and costs. What is even more frustrating can be on disclosure of evidence you find the whole matter could have been resolved at far less cost beforehand.Continue reading
2015 – A year to sort your finances?
As the year continues to progress it is not uncommon for us to start to receive a number of calls from individuals who are in financial distress. With this in mind, it seems like a good time to provide some advice on how people may be able to help themselves. These include:Continue reading
City Link – In what order do the creditors get paid?
As you probably saw over the Christmas period, Citylink became the latest high-profile insolvency to hit the headlines. As someone who has spent most of their professional life working in insolvency, I suppose I should be used to it. However, I still find myself surprised at the lack of understanding of the practical and legal situation in the press.
At the beginning of the process, the press tends to have quite an understandable focus on the human impact. In this case, the holiday season timing made the story particularly poignant. I think we can all understand the terrible impact of learning you will be potentially losing your job at Christmas. You cannot help but feel for the staff in this situation.Continue reading
Landlord liability post disclaimer of lease
Landlords have been experiencing a rough time of late with both the introduction of the Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery provisions and court rulings on various issues surrounding landlords and tenants.
It is a common occurrence that a liquidator will disclaim a lease under section 178 Insolvency Act 1986. A disclaimer does not prohibit a landlord pursuing any guarantors (who remain liable) but what about the landlord’s liabilities for business rates? This question formed the basis of the latest reported case from The High Court in Schroder Exempt Property Unit Trust and another v Birmingham City Council [2014] EWHC 2207.Continue reading
Plan now for Christmas – Part 1
Plan now for Christmas and avoid worrying about the bills in the New Year!!!
The festive season is on the way and unfortunately this can often lead to a number of calls to insolvency practitioners from individuals in the New Year as the bills roll in.Continue reading
Dividend And Overdrawn Directors Loan Accounts – Directors Beware!!
Over the last 3 to 4 years we have noticed an increase in the number of cases where there is an overdrawn director’s loan account or dividends have been drawn illegally.
Now it is understandable that directors wish to be remunerated in the most tax effective way and commonly they will be advised to pay a minimal salary and then draw the balance as dividends. This advice is absolutely fine whilst the Company is making profits and has distributable reserves.Continue reading
Office Christmas Party? You Must Be Crackers.
Have you every wondered what the point of the company Christmas party is?
When you get right down to it most of us put on a ‘do’ every year but is it actually appreciated? Or are we just doing it out of duty? There is a sense of tradition in the office party I suppose. Whether it is a meal and a disco at a hotel, a black tie formal affair, or a few drinks and a buffet in the office we tend to see it as part of the Christmas cavalcade.
Of course we want to say thank you to the staff for their hard work and throwing a little celebration around the Christmas period is a great way to do this. But how often do we throw money and resources at this annual event only to wonder if anyone actually wanted it? Here are some suggestions to mix things up and maybe avoid a little bit of the financial sting over the festive season.Continue reading
Prevention Not Cure – 6 Signs Your Business May Be In Financial Trouble.
There is an old saying ‘prevention is better than cure’ and it is one that rings very true for the financial stability of your business.
At Marshman Price we see businesses of all sizes in various stages of financial difficulty and it is never easy to pinpoint a particular time when things started to go wrong. A business is a complex animal no matter what the size; and problems are caused by a chain of events not a single factor. There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution and if you have looked through our website, you will see we don’t try to offer one.Continue reading
Credit Control – Starting A Culture Of Collection
We all know that prompt payment of your outstanding invoices is key to maintaining solid cash flow.
I think we are all also aware of what happens when our outstanding invoices don’t resolve into income as expected. At best this costs time and money in chasing and credit control, and at worst it can cause severe cash flow and even long term financial issues.Continue reading
Too Poor to go Bankrupt
You may be surprised to learn that UK insolvency legislation is ranked 7th best in the world. It is even higher than the bankruptcy provisions used by our neighbours across the water in the USA. Included in the UK legislation are personal insolvency provisions which are supposedly designed to allow an individual to address their debt problems and effectively start afresh.
The recent insolvency statistics show bankruptcies are down in quarter 2 (as compared to Q1) to 5,452 bankruptcy orders. This represents 5 people in every 10,000 of the UK population are going bankrupt. However, a recent report has suggested approximately 315,000 people are trapped in a wilderness of debt enforcement, demands and, quite frankly, a miserable existence because they cannot afford the £525 it costs to make themselves bankrupt.Continue reading