We didn't realise that once company ceased trading that we'd personally be hounded.

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whiteoaks100

Registered User
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20
hi ..can anyone give us some advice please...


After struggling to keep our heads above water and waiting, our company finally ceased trading in Dec '10. My husband and i were the directors.

We haven't the money to liquidate. Our accountant said it'd cost thousands to close the business.

My husband is a carpenter by trade but with no work and no money coming in we had to close doors.

We are owed 11,000 grand from another contractor for roofing my husband carried out for him nearly three years ago now but he has no intention of paying as he himself has ceased trading as well.

We owe a bank loan of 35,000 which was personally guaranteed. We took this loan out to keep the business afloat but now the bank has closed the account on us as there are no funds to pay it. In fairness they haven't demanded any payments yet and we haven't heard from them since february but i imagine it'll only be a MATTER OF TIME before they too come knocking.

The company owed 6,990 in income tax and another bill for rct and paye arrived in the door for 4,100 the other day.

The sherrif was on to us for payment of the income tax and we told him that we had nothing and i mean absolutely nothing that we can pay.

My husband found work two days a week earning 256 gross. we are on a rent to buy scheme so 100 in rent is paid out of that 256 each week straight away .

In addition we get 162 from social on jobseekers allowance. We have four children and receive 625 in childrens allowance, to cut a long story short the sherrif sent out bailifs last friday and they threatened to take our personal belongings if we didn't come up with €1,700 by monday (yesterday). We ended up getting an extension on cr union loan to come up with the money.

We are at our witts ends. I'm so afraid other creditors will send out bailliffs now..in total we owe 70,000 (including the 35,000 to bank) and absolutely no way of paying it. there are no assets for business as my husband always hired out any equipment he needed. We don't have a premises.
All we have is a laptop which is two years old and a cement mixer worth 150 euros.

We contacted mabs in the hope they can intervene with our creditiors for us.i have nightmares that we're going to end up in prison for non payment.

We are barely living week to week. We don't drink or smoke. I go around with a calculator when doing the weekly shop to try and keep it to 160 euros..remember thats between six of us...and the weekly utilities and diesel take the rest.

We didn't realise that once business ceased trading that we'd personally be hounded by our creditors for monies owed..we've told them our personal situation but they still demand payment and have threatened bailiffs aswell so we try to pay each of them a tenner a month and more when we can.
 
I'm sorry for your troubles and hope MABS will be able to help you. But I don't think MABS will get involved with the commercial aspect to your problems.

Your biggest problem is the unpaid taxes. Everything else is secondary to that.

MABS will probably ask you to complete a list of all your expenditures and incomes. Once you have that you can;

a) contact the Revenue and work out a payment plan to pay the taxes. If no dishonesty was involved, they might even write off some of the taxes as too little to bother with. We can always hope.

b) contact the bank - don't wait for them to contact you. Give them the same info about your current situation. Work out a payment plan.

Who is it that sent the Sheriff?

Don't ignore either the bank or the Revenue - especialy not the Revenue. No one will send out the Sheriff to seize assets if you are honestly and openly working with your creditors. No-one is going to end up in prison.
 
sean.c said:
Don't ignore either the bank or the Revenue - especialy not the Revenue. No one will send out the Sheriff to seize assets if you are honestly and openly working with your creditors. No-one is going to end up in prison.
Click to expand...

Good advice generally but the last bit is what really matters.
 
If the debt is a company debt then the sheriff cannot cant take anything that doesnt belong to the company, as in if company X owes the revenue 10k the sheriff cannot come out and take a car that doesnt belong to the company.

The revenue sheriffs work on a fee from the revenue and dont work for them directly, that way they will say what they can/like to get money out of you so that they can get their fee.

Who are your other creditors? You need to understand the difference between personal liabilities and company liabilities.

I'd engage with the bank as that is a personal liability on you, and come to some sort of long term payment arrangement.

You also need to talk to the revenue about payments but please dont let the sheriffs bully you into paying more to them.
 
hi Contempory...yes the revenue sherrif can take personal possessions to pay off business taxes...he can take your car and any "luxury items"..say tv,laptop etc.
yes having gotten advice from our solicitor we realize that all business debts are a company liability so have sent them letters informing them of the situation.
we know as regards the revenue and bank though that there is a personal liability with those debts so there is no question of not repaying them.
we spoke with revenue about arranging a repayment scheme and was told to send in in writing our request ..attaching the sherrifs warrant and details of our income...but havent heard anything yet so will be writing again.
@ purple....we did inform the revenue of all our earnings and assets but they still referred it to a sherrif, we spoke to him when he sent out a demand for 6990 and sent him proof of our income and how we'd ceased trading but he still sent bailiffs out. so now i think the only way of keeping them from taking our possessions is to try and arrange payment with the child allowance every month. i checked out the rules and regulations regarding the revenue sherrif and they allow you six months to pay up remainder once you give initial payment or in extreme circumstances spread it over 2 years so i'm hoping he will agree to this..only i'm hoping he'll wait til january to begin payments ...otherwise christmas is a problem .
 
well guys thanks for all the replies..appreciate the advice. our solicitor is going to mull over for a few days on the best way to approach the bank.
the revenue is a different story however...having contacted them to try and sort out a repayment scheme and to ask that they remove the revenue sherrif from hounding us...it was basically pointless as they said the revenue sherrif still has to be paid so we have to deal with him on this..so im hoping he'll call off the bailiffs and be obliging enough to arrange payments we can afford as we cannot afford another big payout like what we had to pay that monday
 
Whiteoaks,

Ive expanded your title a little to more fully reflect your questions. Let me know if this is ok.

aj
mod
 
whiteoaks100 said:
to cut a long story short the sherrif sent out bailifs last friday and they threatened to take our personal belongings if we didn't come up with €1,700 by monday (yesterday). We ended up getting an extension on cr union loan to come up with the money.

.
Click to expand...

Hope things are a little better today and welcome to AAM.

I think you made a mistake on paying them the money as now they will put more pressure on you to pay more. If they smell money they will go after it. By paying something you demonstrated the opposite of what you hoped to achieve. If you don't have the money then you should not borrow (getting yourself into more financial trouble) and you should not pay it back. They cannot get blood from a stone. The sherrif can take exactly what from you? He's not going to take a laptop (and if he is that petty hide it when he comes). In any case it doesn't make sense, you cannot sell a second hand laptop or TV for any value.

What else have you of value? Do you have a valuable car (that means one he can sell on) and I would be very shocked if he took an old family car from a family with 4 children.

You are not going to jail, what makes you think that. Your company has ceased trading and is in debt. That's not a jailable offence. You have to step back from the picture. For sure go to Mabs, tell them it's an urgent case. You need some independant advice.

Anything you send to revenue you should do by registered post. No doubt they are slow in reacting. So let them reply to you. If your income is as low as you've posted than they will have to write off your debt. Be open and honest about everything with revenue and the bank and they will come to an agreement, they are only testing you to see if there is any money, as is their right and obligation.
 
Revenue sheriffs cannot take personal property to satisfy the debts of a limited company.
 
Time said:
Revenue sheriffs cannot take personal property to satisfy the debts of a limited company.
Click to expand...

OP stated that some of the loans were personally guaranteed so I guess in those circumstances the Sherriff can take personal property.
 
hi again ...the revenue sherrif is a sherif hired by revenue to obtain money for taxes and vat owed ..this is what this sherrif is after..he is different to other sherrifs.he isnt interested in bank loans or other creditors..this guy works for revenue and is only interested in getting the money owed to revenue.they have the power to cease any property that is owned by the debtor which includes car,household property eg tv,laptops basically anything thats deemed a luxury item..he can enter your home and take anything he thinks of saleable value.
believe me i know what they have the power to do..i've looked up their rules and regulations.the REVENUE sherrif has the court power behind him. plus once a case is referred to him the revenue will not deal with it once referred to him.we rang revenue yesterday to try and set up an installment plan but they wouldn't even entertain a phone call saying we have to deal with sherrif..so rang him and he refused to deal with us stating that once he sent out the foot soldiers ie the bailiffs then we have to deal with them..so we're at that stage now...they will only set up an installment plan for two years max so i worked out that would be roughly 252 over 21 months to pay off the balance..i'lllet yeknow how it goes...
its all so barbarrik ..my advice don't let your taxes go into arrears.
we fell into this trap as we couldnt get paid for roofing work done for another contractor and had to basically not pay our tax just so we'd have enough to eat.we kept business open long enough to finish a house we were building and once it was done we ceased trading straight away.
the sherrif has all our personal details on file and he knows exactly how much we get a week but they dont care about sob stories only in results..their answer was that even those on the smallest dole allowance have to make payments to us.
 
Time said:
Revenue sheriffs cannot take personal property to satisfy the debts of a limited company.
Click to expand...
unfortunately they can...they are different to "ordinary bailiff/sherrifs" as they have the courts power behind them .unlike normal bailiffs ..the revenue sherrif can take anything personal belonged to the debtor to recoup monies owed.if you look up the rules and regulations on revenue sherrif you'll see that they can basically take what they like. unlike normal sherrifs whom you can order off your property and have them arrested for tresspassing and state your contract is with the creditor and not them ...the revenuesherrif has the power to enter and take possession of all land,chattels,vehicles ,jewellery,etc
 
Bronte said:
Hope things are a little better today and welcome to AAM.

I think you made a mistake on paying them the money as now they will put more pressure on you to pay more. If they smell money they will go after it. By paying something you demonstrated the opposite of what you hoped to achieve. If you don't have the money then you should not borrow (getting yourself into more financial trouble) and you should not pay it back. They cannot get blood from a stone. The sherrif can take exactly what from you? He's not going to take a laptop (and if he is that petty hide it when he comes). In any case it doesn't make sense, you cannot sell a second hand laptop or TV for any value.

What else have you of value? Do you have a valuable car (that means one he can sell on) and I would be very shocked if he took an old family car from a family with 4 children.

You are not going to jail, what makes you think that. Your company has ceased trading and is in debt. That's not a jailable offence. You have to step back from the picture. For sure go to Mabs, tell them it's an urgent case. You need some independant advice.

Anything you send to revenue you should do by registered post. No doubt they are slow in reacting. So let them reply to you. If your income is as low as you've posted than they will have to write off your debt. Be open and honest about everything with revenue and the bank and they will come to an agreement, they are only testing you to see if there is any money, as is their right and obligation.
Click to expand...

if we hadnt agreed to pay then they would have ceased our there and then.
yes i know that it isnt a jail sentence...i was so worked up and scared the day i wrote it that it felt like it.we have given proof of all our income and bank statements but as i said before they dont want a sob story only results...
i never thought that it could be so barbarrik in these times though.this is our first time ever dealing with a revenue sherrif and i'm still in shock at their way of dealing with the matter ...but no doubt there are lots of people in this situation. thankyou for the reply though .
 
contemporary :
It's tax the company has to pay for us as employees. So it's a company bill.
And only half of it is tax the rest is vrt which is a company thing aswell. I have no personal liabilities with revenue.
 
Step back a second whiteoaks. Your posts are hard to read.

What exactly do you have of value that the sherriff is going to take, what has he hinted that he will take, not what is on the website, that's just to scare people.

What do you have of value, what item do you have that he could take and sell?

Can you outline slowly what happened exactly when the sherriff called to you the other day.
 
when we had been in contact wth the sherrif a few weeks back ..he wanted a breakdown of all our assets,income etc which we supplied. he asked if we could pay anything towards the 6990 due ..which of course we couldn't .so he stated that he is requested by the law to send out the bailiffs to see what they could confiscate eventhough he was aware there wasnt any company assets to take. on friday there was two bailiffs waiting in a jeep outside my door . at the time i didnt know they were bailiffs..a few minutes later my husband rang me to say there were bailiffs outside looking to come in and checkwhat was available to seize....i told him there was no way they were coming into our home with just myself and the kids there alone. he rang them back to tell them he was on his way home to speak to them but they told him that they wanted a quater of the total due ie 1700 and if he didnt have any money with him that they had a truck up the street ready to take any goods they could seize starting with our car...renault scenic. and they werent going anywhere til they got a result . he told them he'd try to get some money by the monday so they accepted that and left ..with the threat that if they didnt get 1700 or close to it by monday ..they'd be back .my husband then rang me back to let me know what had been said and told me to go out to them as they had to hand me a warrant which i did and in the process they said that no excuse would be accepted for non payment and that they have people on the lowest social welfare income paying them in installments.so they're bullying tactics worked and we managed to get a loan extention of 2000 on sat .when monday came my huusband rang to arrange to meet them but they gave him an account to lodge it into instead for revenue sherrif which we did.
 
Bronte said:
Step back a second whiteoaks. Your posts are hard to read.

What exactly do you have of value that the sherriff is going to take, what has he hinted that he will take, not what is on the website, that's just to scare people.

What do you have of value, what item do you have that he could take and sell?

Can you outline slowly what happened exactly when the sherriff called to you the other day.
Click to expand...
the only thing we have is a renault scenic worth about 10,000 and other then that a laptop which is two years old .....anything else worth talking about is two tvs ,dvd and my engagement ring.
 
i'm confused now...our accountant said we wouldn't be held responsible for the company debts but revenue say otherwise. i'm going to get legal advice on this matter as the revenue sherrif seem to have ultimate power here.
 
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