Litigation and disputes are a risk usually when companies or individuals cannot pay their debts. Our insolvency solicitors can help you make or defend against claims and efficiently resolve your disputes.
The insolvency procedure helps in resolving outstanding debts owed to creditors by individuals or businesses. However, once insolvency has begun, issues may still exist with stakeholders, shareholders, banks, and insolvency practitioners.

Who Can Carter Bond Solicitors help?

Our lawyers can advise on disputes involving:

• Shareholders claiming against directors for causing a company to go insolvent
• Liquidators claiming against directors or shareholders of insolvent companies
• Debtors using insolvency processes to try and avoid paying debt
• Companies facing winding-up petitions or individuals facing bankruptcy petitions
• Claims against insolvency practitioners who have breached their duty to creditors
• Insolvency practitioners recovering assets from individuals or companies.

Liquidation does not just apply where a company is insolvent. It is also an option if you want to close your company, perhaps because you want to retire or change your career.

Liquidation is the process whereby the company’s assets are sold, the company ceases operation, and is eventually struck off the register at the Registrar of Companies. The funds raised by selling the assets are used to pay off any company debts, with the remainder of the capital going to the shareholders. Therefore, if you no longer wish to operate your company and wish to close it, this is a good option to ensure you receive all the capital in the company.

If you are chasing a business for payment of a debt they owe you, similarly to bankruptcy, you must show the court that the business cannot pay its debts as they fall due. A way of getting the evidence to prove this is by issuing demand letters and then a corporate statutory demand. A corporate statutory demand requires payment of the debt within 21 days. If the business has not paid the debt within this time frame, the court can infer that the business is unable to pay its debts.

After waiting for the statutory demand to expire, the next step is to issue a winding up petition against the company. The company must owe you £750 or more in order for you to petition for a winding up. This is essentially an application that will close down the company. If the court issues a winding up order, the company’s bank account will be frozen, and the Official Receiver at the Insolvency Service will sell its assets or property to repay you and other creditors.

Both winding up a company and petitioning bankruptcy against a debtor can be expensive. Currently, the cost to present a winding up petition to the court is £302 for court fees, and £2,600 for the petition deposit. The deposit is used by the Insolvency Service to manage the winding up of the company, that is, if the court makes the winding up order. If the court does not make a winding up order, the petition deposit will be refunded to you.

For bankruptcy, the cost for the court fee is the same at £302. Bankruptcy is slightly cheaper, as the petition deposit is £1,500. The deposit is used by the Insolvency Service to manage the bankruptcy if the court makes the order. Otherwise, the deposit will be refunded to you.

In both cases, the court fee of £302 is non-refundable.

As the world changes, professionals in our society are realising that lifestyle is as vital to them as income. We are the lucky ones who have hand-picked lawyers who can provide the best quality advice but at outer City costs. Our offices are in North West London, which may not be in the City’s centre but at the same time this gives us two key advantages to set us apart:

1. It allows us to charge our clients for what they pay for, our advice NOT our office space.

    

2. Our staff save time and hassle on commutes which translates into a healthier working environment and more friendly and timely advice delivered to you.

ALL our lawyers have previously worked in large City-based law firms and continue to practise and offer the same high level of service  they provided to clients in the City, but without the pressure and demands often dictated by City law firms. This allows us to be competitive on our fees without compromising our service.

We have made smart decisions about the way we operate, so you can trust us to help you make smart decisions about your matter.

All in all, our clients win, which is the way we like it.

Many ask us ‘what’s different about you?’ and we like to reply, ‘because we go the extra mile’. We see our work as building and maintaining good business relationships rather than just earning fees. How we do this is by keeping in constant contact with our clients and intermediaries. From pre to post instruction we ensure that our clients are informed of all legal issues that may impact their business and therefore lives. That is why we provide daily or weekly updates to ALL of our clients whether there is anything to tell them or not (we don’t charge for this we just see it as part of our service). We like our clients to rest peacefully knowing that when we are instructed, and we say ‘we will take it from here’ they know we mean it.

All our clients benefit from the same high level of care and attention whether the instruction is big or small. At the outset of each matter, we discuss the entire process with our clients, including the costs, potential outcomes and issues associated. This is to ensure clients are fully aware, knowledgeable and are in control always. Supporting and ensuring we provide the highest level of services, we offer our constant contact process with the partner or barrister leading  your file, a document log in for matters which are for larger and more complicated instructions and on-going support post transaction should our clients require it. Our aim is not just to get the work done, but to make our clients’ lives easier as we do it, which is why we ensure that our clients have regular access to the resources they need from us.