Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

[Amethyst]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

Oh and.... I'm receiving emails from Ashley's in-house solicitor headed 'without prejudice'. Does that mean I can't share what she says here?

Also have you checked her out on the SRA /Law Soc sites.

[gollum]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

Ashley comes up on the law society website as "Not an SRA-regulated law practice". She doesn't come up individually using her name to search.

One of her emails does include a serious attempt at a repayment solution by way of a fixed amount every week but it involved me providing the Company debit card details so that they could dip in and top up if I didn't pay the full amount one week. There's no way I'm doing that. The way they're behaving with the Merchant B account it's likely they'd empty by business account.

[Amethyst]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

I think you are wise not to go along with giving them your debit card details. The part of the letter that refers to an offer wouldn't be able to be bought up in court (so parties can discuss settlement without worrying it might prejudice their case in court).

[Amethyst]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

Ashley Commercial Finance Limited
Hila Rachel Whitfield

Solicitor Admitted as a solicitor 15/12/92

Employee at:
Ashley Commercial Finance Limited
8th Floor, 80 Mosley Street, St Peter's Square, Manchester, M2 3FX, England
Tel:
0161-233 6399

[gollum]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

Last email received from Ashley's legal dept


‘Without prejudice’

Your email below and previous emails were passed on to me. I am the In House Solicitor of Ashley Business Cash Limited.

I have this morning reviewed fully your file and my conclusions are as follows:

1. On the date 2013 Gollum's Company Ltd (GCL) entered a Card Receivables Sales and Purchase Agreement (‘Agreement’)with Ashley Business Cash Limited (‘ABC’). In this Agreement GCL agreed to sell to ABC a specified percentage of the card receivables for the sum of £20,000 and the Purchase Amount to be paid to ABC from the Card Receivables was £26,000. The Agreement was for 12 Months. The Agreement also specified that you must maintain a minimum monthly Turnover of £xxxxxxx to be able to pay the Purchase Amount within the Sale and Purchase period of 12 months. That is a monthly collection of £xxxx or £xxx a week on a 5 week month.
2. This arrangement has been breached because Merchant A, your processor is not prepared to accept your instructions and pass the Card Receivables to us as Agreed.
3. As a result of this breach, GCL is substantially in arrears and I am instructed that out of the sum that ABC expected to receive from GCL pursuant to Agreement at today’s date, a sum of £xxxx has not been collected.
4. You admitted in correspondences that all receipts from Merchant A have been collected by GCL and I understand that some payments have been passed on from GCL direct to ABC.

The Breach

Pursuant to Clause 3.1.12 of the terms and conditions of the Agreement, you failed to maintain a minimum monthly turnover as specified in Clause A and therefore ABC have pursuant to clause 3.2 the right to terminate the Agreement. The consequence of this being that the whole of the balance of the Purchase Amount becomes payable immediately and a daily charge of 0.1% can be applied to the outstanding balance pursuant to clause 3.2d.

Your Allegations

You have written to ABC on a number of occasions and I specifically refer to your email dated the xxx to xxxxxxxxxx. In this email you attempted to set up your version of events and suggested a way to move forward. Your email suggested that you continue to collect the Merchant A card receivables. We should continue to receive the Card Receipt through Merchant B and keep its entirety with the aim that any collection over and above the monthly percentage will be held for the next month. If there is a shortfall you will make it up by bacs. You mentioned a minimum of £xxx

Our Final Proposal to settle

I attach for your information an up to date Statement and I summarise the same as follows:

Amount to be collected as specified by the Agreement: £xxxx x5 = £xxxxx
Less Arrears £xxxx
__________

Total amount actually collected £xxxx

Amount outstanding and to be collected at the Final date £xxxxx (full balance)


In order for you to repay the Purchase amount 12 months after the Payment date you will need to maintain monthly payments of £xxxx or £xxx per week.

Your proposal above will not meet the payment required and this will leave you in a situation where at the end of the Agreement you will have to find sums in the region of £xxxx to repay the Purchase Amount in full.

In your email dated the xxxx to xxxxxxx you informed her that Merchant A weekly receivables for that week was £xxxx and this is an average weekly amount. Throughout, January to May this was the sum which you collected from Merchant A without making the percentage payment to us. (on average £xxx p.w). If this sum was paid to us then there would have been no arrears. I understand that ABC has kept some of the collection from Merchant B in full to make up the shortfall and as the sums above clearly demonstrated this was not enough.

Therefore, with the aim to assist you and with a final effort to move matters forward, I am instructed to offer the following proposal:

1. You will deduct 15% every month from Merchant A Card Receivables and pass it to us by bacs. You will back the same with a Statement specifying your card receipts.
2. All receipts from Merchant B will be held by ABC. At the end of the month ABC will adjust its sums and if there is a sum over and above the £xxxx that has been collected, we will make a payment to GCL.
3. You will provide us with GCL debit/Credit card details and if at the end of the month the full outstanding monthly payment has not been paid, we will charge GCL card with the shortfall. We will give you 7 days notice to allow you to ensure that funds are in the account for this purpose.

You will appreciate that this method does alter the Agreement envisaged at the start. It will also involve a lot of administrative time on ABC’s side. However, we are prepared to offer you this altered payment method with the aim to avoid termination.

If you have any queries or you want to discuss matters further please do not hesitate to ring me on xxx xxxxxxxx

I am instructed to advise you that this offer should be open for your acceptance for 7 days only. Thereafter, the same will be withdrawn and we will proceed to formally terminate the Agreement and pursue recovery proceedings under the Agreement and the Guarantee.

[gollum]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

I'm just composing a letter to them now so will post it here once done and before I send it.

Thanks so much for your continued advice, it's very much appreciated.

[Amethyst]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

That's okay I'll have a read in a short while - but weirdness just happened - was posting a warning against a clone loans firm taking £54 out of peoples bank accounts and the address comes up at that same ' 80 Moseley St' - twilight zone stuff there lol. http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...501#post442501

[Amethyst]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

Okay,

Pursuant to Clause 3.1.12 of the terms and conditions of the Agreement, you failed to maintain a minimum monthly turnover as specified in Clause A and therefore ABC have pursuant to clause 3.2 the right to terminate the Agreement. The consequence of this being that the whole of the balance of the Purchase Amount becomes payable immediately and a daily charge of 0.1% can be applied to the outstanding balance pursuant to clause 3.2d.

That is right 3.1.12 does point to clause A which does state a minimum monthly turnover. Is your monthly turnover overall meeting the minimum just it's not going through because of the Merchant who would make payments to the third party ? or overall was your monthly turnover based upon your annual average (considering you are seasonal). We might need to look further into those discussions and how that translates into the agreement.

2. This arrangement has been breached because Merchant A, your processor is not prepared to accept your instructions and pass the Card Receivables to us as Agreed.

I'm not sure a term of a contract can be wholly reliant on a third party who are not party to the agreement.

1. You will deduct 15% every month from Merchant A Card Receivables and pass it to us by bacs. You will back the same with a Statement specifying your card receipts.

sounds reasonable in the circumstance, the keeping 100% of the other Merchant doesn't. Is there actually a minimum monthly payment mentioned in the agreement?

[gollum]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

That's okay I'll have a read in a short while - but weirdness just happened - was posting a warning against a clone loans firm taking £54 out of peoples bank accounts and the address comes up at that same ' 80 Moseley St' - twilight zone stuff there lol. http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...501#post442501

Oh yes that is wierd! Wouldn't be surprised if they were connected. I wonder if they're struggling. They closed their London branch recently without notice and appear to be trying overly hard to call in my loan.

[gollum]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

That is right 3.1.12 does point to clause A which does state a minimum monthly turnover. Is your monthly turnover overall meeting the minimum just it's not going through because of the Merchant who would make payments to the third party ? or overall was your monthly turnover based upon your annual average (considering you are seasonal). We might need to look further into those discussions and how that translates into the agreement.

My monthly turnover was based on my annual average and calculated using Merchant A & B statements from the previous 9 (I think) months. It was sold to me on the basis that I should maintain an average monthly turnover, not a fixed minimum, that's the whole point of this type of borrowing, is that it allows for fluctuations in turnover. But yes, my average monthly turnover overall is meeting that in the agreement although the whole year isn't over yet. And it's just not going through because Merchant A aren't making the payments.

I'm not sure a term of a contract can be wholly reliant on a third party who are not party to the agreement.

OK that's good. And anyway they confirmed in writing in the additional agreement previously posted that both Merchants were carrying out my instructions as per the agreement.

sounds reasonable in the circumstance, the keeping 100% of the other Merchant doesn't. Is there actually a minimum monthly payment mentioned in the agreement?

Yes there is a minimum monthly payment on page 2 but I understood it to be an average. Like you asked before, how can they be sure of me receiving sales exactly reaching that amount every month?

I can agree to them keeping 100% of Merchant B which would rarely meet the average anyway. It's the details of the rest that bothers me. I'd be happy to calculate 14% or even 15% of our overall Merchant A & B sales on a weekly basis and of that total send any shortfall not received from the 100% retained from Merchant B. (I offered and started to do this before but then they hiked up the amount and wanted me to sign another agreement and hand over my card details.) That way we would be more in line with how the agreement was meant to be and sold to me. While we are in a quiet time repayments would not be too demanding. What they want though is a fixed minimum monthly payment that is 40% higher than that stated in the agreement which was 26k divided by 52 = £500 a week. Reason being that we are now in arrears and to catch up by the end of the 12 month 'agreement' that's what we'd need to pay. What is the point of having the 14% deduction in the first place if what they want is a fixed minimum amount every week? And anyway, they have a clause that appears to cover any shortfall anyway. If at the end of the 12 month period not all has been repaid it would be due then. It doesn't make sense to me.

What I would really like is to continue as I understood the agreement to be in the first place - taking 14% of card sales from Merchant A & B. However, through no fault of mine that can't happen now but I don't see why I should have to suffer in a quiet time paying a higher amount to catch up on arrears that have accrued in the meantime.

Sorry, I appear to be ranting...... finished now

[wales01man]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

Am I reading this correctly>
This company wants to take all the money generated by sales through one merchant account and if at the end of the month there is any left after they take what they say is owed to them they give Golluns company whats left?

[gollum]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

Not really wales01man. In a nutshell;

What should have happened is:
They intercept all credit card sales from 2 merchant accounts (on line and PDQ machine), take 14% and give the rest back to us. This is done on a batch by batch basis so usually every day.

What they are doing now because of the breakdown of the agreement is:
They are keeping 100% of payments from the PDQ machine sales (which are generally less than on line) and at the end of the month want me to pay any shortfall plus arrears to make up a fixed monthly amount.

[Amethyst]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

So whats the interest rate on these loans?

£500 a week over 52 weeks is £26k - so if that is what you borrowed then I'm lost as to how it works. Or did you have £20k cash advance. Sorry I'm probably being thick and need to read up on these Merchant cash advance loans.

[gollum]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

Ha, don't worry it took me a while to get my head round!

I borrowed 20k and they added a fixed 'finance fee' of 6k on to it so I suppose if represented as a percentage it would be 30%. Not cheap, but when it's all that's available to you.........

[gollum]

Re: Statutory Demand Threat Personally For Company Account

This just got a bit more complicated.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Ashley could not provide me with one of the true copies of the agreement that I signed and instead emailed a black & white photocopy, only signed by me and with page 7 missing (page 5 also but only because it's mostly blank). I posted the pages in posts #4 and #5.

When I complained they countersigned it, certified it on the front page as being a true copy of the original and emailed it again. This time though, page 6 is missing and page 7 is included. How on earth could I possibly know now that this is the document I signed. I've attached page 7 here in case it's pertinent.