creditor gave our debts to debt collector before close of the business

D

deranne

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Quick background
Husband and I closed our business 31st jan, we notified all our creditors 1/1/19 of intention to close and that we intend to honour our debts once shop is closed, stock sold, revenue sorted etc. We didn't want to do the overnight close and disappear but try as much as possible to keep our integrity.
One creditor to the tune of 7k (25 years dealing) got very hostile almost immediately. Fair enough.
We tried to negotiate a write down and offered 5k, they were having none of it. Before the 31st they passed on the debt to EH debt collection and sent us an email to notify us of this. It seems they had a debt insurance with this company so I don't know if this qualifies as a sold debt! EH have already added on 1k to the bill.
Where can we go with this? We were hoping to negotiate with the creditor but now its EH we are dealing with, is there room to negotiate? The original creditors stock was on a 30 days credit but this would have passed by 1/1/19.
 
I'm not a solicitor but I doubt there is any basis to add €1K to the bill. It really depends on what you want to do with it. Other participants may have a suggestion of a strategy. Did you trade as a company or a sole trader? If a company it isn't your debt

If the debt collection start calling you on the telephone - ask them if the call is being recorded and it they say it is then say that you don't consent to it being recorded. You can always ask them where they got your personal data, which a phone number probably is, and where is your consent. If you did consent to it - withdraw it. You can mess with their head on the contact.

However eventually you will have to do a deal or you'll probably end up in the District Court.
 
Was he a supplier of stock as you say stock is sold so I would think he should be entitled to all his owed.
 
You closed on January 31st, you either have stock belonging to them or you have sold it at a profit, return the unused stock, make an offer on the remaining sums owing, they are also a small business operating on thin margins I'm sure, you worked with them on trust for the past 25 years and finally stiffed them, not nice, did you order goods from them knowing you were considering closing.

Offering 5k on a 7k debt is not honouring your debt, you said you intended to honour your debts.
 
Yes a sole trader
Offered to return stock in early January and they refused.
No they are not a small business but yes they messed us around a couple of times during the 25 years so after refusal of returning stock we have decided to negotiate. If that doesn't make us nice people so be it.
 
Was there reservation of title on the goods, they should take the goods back unless they are very specialised items, bring them back anyway, you should be able to deduct the at cost value from the returned items easily enough then deal with the balance on the outstanding invoice

25 years mutual business dealings is an impressive period worth the effort as you will recover from this, life moves on.
 
I am not sure about reservation on title but I'm sure that is standard. At first they wanted to charge a fee for taking back the stock and then asked if they were boxed and then refused, its not specialised stock either and would have no trouble moving it on. They are being awkward and hostile even though we notified them we were closing etc (which is never done in our particular field).
Yes life moves on thankfully.
How do we handle the debt collector as they operated as a debtor insurance which doesn't seem like your bog standard debt collector.
 
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