IE VAT number,NI address, IE premises - Court order, what next?

LouthLass

Registered User
Messages
171
To cut a long story short, I have taken what I believed to be a Irish Ltd company to District Court for faulty goods and obtained a court order for the amount of the faulty goods. The reason I believed that it was a Ltd company was the fact they advertised the shop as 'XYZ Ltd' (obviously not real name as unsure if I can name the actual business on this forum). So the court order at this time is against a Ltd company, it has now gone to the Sheriffs for collection. The company applied for an extension of time but was rejected as the date of the original order was in March 08 and they only applied for it last week so the judge threw it out!

However, I have since found out today that the Ltd name over the shop (which incidentially has shut up shop and now vacated the premises) is NOT registered with the CRO as a Ltd company. The IE VAT number quoted on their invoice is actually registered to a business of a very similar name in Northern Ireland - where does this leave me? Is it legal to attach Ltd to a name even if not registered with CRO? I have tried searching the Northern Ireland version of CRO for the business but no luck, no notice of this company. Is it possible to become VAT registered in the State with a outside State address but have business premises within the State - I always believed you could not register a business for VAT outside the state IF it had a business premises within the juridisdiction!!

Basically, my question is when the Sheriff returns my warrant as non-res (which I am sure that they will do) where do I go from here? There is no Irish Ltd co to wind up, no facility to trace the directors, no goods to seize - how could they have been allowed to trade for at least 3 years from the premises they had without any follow up? Any advice or guidance in this matter would be much appreciated.
 
Did you or your solicitor do a search in CRO to check the status of the company and the registered office before serving proceedings.?

You can report the facts to the CRO who may take action, but that is unlikely to produce money to pay your decree.

If you can locate the person or persons who were falsely trading as a purported ltd co you could sue them personally for the debt wherever they are now.
 
Have you checked 'www.snip-biz.co.uk' to check if the company is registered in the British Isles. If so it will give you the full details of directors, shareholders etc.