Bankcruptcy Trustee

[Simonbanks]

Hello

Can anyone advise if debts owed in dissolved companies are
still of interest to the trustee in someone’s personal bankruptcy ?

Also how far back re personal and business accounts do they go to investigate income, expenditure, transfers etc and do they also look at previous company accounts and associated tax returns, be those tax returns associated with self assessment and or business accounts?

Any help much appreciated

[atticus]

what do you mean by debts owed "in" dissolved companies?

[Simonbanks]

CCJs against dissolved companies once owned/director, by the same person who is now personally bankrupt. It shows a common history of his approach to debt.

Also if the now bankrupt individual arranges for one of the creditors in his bankcrupcy to be paid back what they are owed via ‘a friend’, is this allowed? Shouldn’t all debts of the bankrupt now be managed by the trustee, with no preferences being shown re who is paid back first etc?

[atticus]

Do you think those debts owed by the dissolved companies can be collected? If you do, why, and how?

As to the other thing, you may need to investigate the arrangements in more detail to see whether there has been a 'preference' of this creditor.

[Simonbanks]

Hi many thanks for your reply

I am aware the debtor has assets (personal) and am also aware of other creditors that have come forward in his bankruptcy (again personal) so I am wondering if he is obliged to disclose his other old dissolved company debts to the trustee, as he has a track record of many other scams and search via Trust Online makes this very clear.

Also following a court blunder I have now been made aware that he is requesting a court oral reconsideration hearing which has been granted despite a prior court notification stating any appeals or stay pending were not allowed. He has extensively used lies etc to try a huge variety of approaches to avoid paying my debt and obviously now those of many others, yet the courts appear to be once again allowing him a further attempt. It seems never ending. My question in this regard is given the court expect submissions by no later than 3 days before the hearing date, and as I have no idea what the content of his submissions are, how do I respond ensuring I adhere to court timelines

Also do you think I would be well advised to seek legal representation at this hearing?

many thanks

[atticus]

It is surely a statement of obvious that you cannot make submissions responding to submissions that you have not seen. But what you can do is collate information showing the history leading up to the decision this man wants the court to reconsider.

[Simonbanks]

And in regards to disclosures to the trustee, is this a legal obligation ?

[atticus]

I am not aware that a bankrupt's obligation to cooperate with his trustee in bankruptcy extends to disclosing debts owed not by him but by another legal entity.

You may of course share such information as you have been able to gather.

[Simonbanks]

Another question please

The defendant in this bankruptcy case was told during the last outcome of the appeals process, that there needed to be a time for ‘finality’ in proceedings, as the defendant was continually raising appeals via lower and higher courts, and in doing so actually changed his sworn statement of truth in attempts to hide behind the corporate veil. In fact he had submitted 5 different statements, all supported by a sworn statement of truth, all containing slight changes in attempts to sway the judges decision. He had even subsequently changed his company name to align with the contract he had with me, when in fact the company never existed at the time when our contract was in place.

Whilst the small claim was ongoing I raised my concerns with my bank, advising them if all payments I made plus additional costs (my schedule of loss) and they initially declined my request to refund payments I made, stating the builders bank advised that all of the money had been used and they could not provide a refund. I persisted and my bank fortunately agreed that I had been scammed and internal decisions were now being over turned in my favour, and I was provided with a full refund against the payments made to the actual ltd company name that did in fact exist at the time but was not that mentioned in the contract. This was all fine, and I agreed with my bank that as my ongoing small claim (plus costs) related to the same and involved establishing that the contract was invalid, and that my claim was against the builder as an individual, if any funds were returned to me via the courts, I would provide them with this money so that there was no financial gain, plus by establishing legally that the builder was personally liable, a point not yet proven in court, this would help my bank to subsequently chase the builder for the return of that money.

The builder is now arguing that as I was refunded by the bank, his personal debt is paid and he should therefore have never had a CCJ against him in the first place

My position is that the debt refunded by the bank was against an Ltd which legally existed and that this is therefore a separate legal entity, so having established that the builder was in fact now personally liable means these debts are now effectively separate, which needed to be proven in court which has now happened and any money I obtained would be refunded to the bank. To date no money has been paid to either my self or the bank by the builder, so having established he did infact scam me, the debt still exists.

This case has been ongoing for over 2.5 years, due to the courts continual appeals processes and his continual variations within his own sworn statements of truth, so I guess my question is, given the courts last address against his appeals, was that we must reach finality and that he had no further opportunity for an appeal or a stay pending, where dies this leave me, as a date has now been set for yet another hearing (there must have been at least 6 so far) with this being for an oral reconsideration against the orig case held back in Dec 2022 which I won and that he has continually appealed against and lost

[atticus]

Can anyone else comment? If the new information that the OP was refunded in full by the bank has not previously been considered by a court in this saga, then I think I have some sympathy for the builder on the question whether a bankruptcy order should have been made. That initial sympathy might change on consideration of the full facts and documents, but this forum is not the place to do that, and I am not going to spend the time that would be needed.

Yes, there is a need for finality, but is this new evidence that was not previously considered by a court?

[Simonbanks]

Is there no consideration given for his blatant lies via continually varying his sworn statements of truth prior to presenting any new information?

Also factually the refund was presented against an Ltd and my claim was against him personally, so surely he and the company are seperate legal entities. So much
like hiding behind the Corporate veil but in reverse. Surely the same rules apply as no one should be able to have it both ways.

Also there are concerns that this builder has also not disclosed all of his debts in the bankcrupcy submissions, one of which was or is this same debt being chased by the bank, so my question would be if not why not? If he knew about this before he surely should have presented as part of his appeals process or if he has either directly or indirectly paid the bank, surely making preferential payments in a case like this after being declared bankrupt is not allowed. So I guess my questions here is what constitutes ‘new’ information as I am sure you can’t just keep sitting on information and then keep trying new tactics. After all to date I can show he has openly lied to the courts more than once, which seems to not be a problem apparently.

[Simonbanks]

Also the debt was NOT repaid in full. The bank refunded the money I paid via bank transfer but did not cover my full schedule of loss and the refund details do not specific what items were covered, so again surely money is money and without stating the money returned is for example ABC, then D wouldn’t be covered. The bank had my schedule of loss which was far greater than the amount refunded and indeed far greater than the amount within the CCJ, so it is not aligned directly to either of those two amounts. So how would the court differentiate? It’s all become so confusing it what was clearly a case of a fraudulent builder scamming me (agreed by two banks) and many others, a builder who then openly lies in court. I try to be honest and can prove there was no intention of financial gain yet the system/process still allows further opportunity for appeals or reconsiderations despite judges x 5 all previously telling the builder ‘no’. It’s crazy

[atticus]

I have read the last 2 posts several times since yesterday evening. You are clearly adding to the information previously provided. Given that you are clearly determined to resist the application, I strongly recommend you to organise your thoughts and your evidence into a logical order so that you can present them clearly to the judge.