Example Questions
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I am being threatened with a statutory demand being served on me personally can you please tell me what the company about to do this have to show to enable them to do this e.g. 1. Do, they have a time in which to do this from the time the debt was incurred?? 2. Do they need a county court judgement against me to enable them to issue it 3. I have a substantial counterclaim against them .If they do issue how do I best defend it. Please give me p precise details 4. They have asked me for a meeting to settle this matter do you think I should attend or wait for them to do something.
Thank you for your question. There is no time limit for serving a statutory demand, only that the deadline for payment has been passed and the debt is owed. The statutory demand can be issued without having already obtained a county court judgment. You can challenge a statutory demand by applying to court to have it 'set aside'. You will need to apply to court within 18 days of receiving the demand. You need to complete forms 6.4 and 6.5 (available to download here - http://www.bis.gov.uk/insolvency/about-us/forms/england-and-wales) and file them at your local county court. The court will then either accept your application and fix a hearing or dismiss it. At the hearing the court will then decide whether to set aside the demand or dismiss your case. If your application is dismissed at any stage the statutory demand is still effective and you will have 21 days to settle the debt. After 21days, if the debt is more than £750 the company can petition for your bankruptcy. In reality bankruptcy proceedings are usually only pursued if the debt is of a significant level and the company has sufficient funds to pursue it however the threat should not be ignored. If you have been offered the chance to settle the matter you should seriously consider it as it could avoid further costs. Any attempts to resolve it can be considered if the matter gets to court. I hope you are able to resolve this matter.
I am acting as an agent for a network of experience operators in the UK. An example experience would be a Tandem Skydive. As the agent for this experience, should the participant receive an injury whilst partaking in the experience, be it accidentally or through negligence on the operator's part, will my company be liable to the injured party? If so, what kind of business insurance should I be purchase to cover my company?
As an agent you should sufficiently express in your terms and conditions that you are merely an agent of the hosting company providing the experience and are in no way responsible for any injury or loss. It is difficult to see how you could be held liable if you were merely the booking agent, however any agency agreement you have with the hosting company should provide you with an indemnity that they will indemnify you against any costs claims or demands arising out of their actions in providing the experience. You could look to consider public liability insurance as agent and get some quotes for additional protection.
We have setup a LTD company, two directors both doing work, one working mon-fri other has a fulltime job and will do company work on evenings & weekends, what is the best way to structure payments so that each director is paid based on their contributions, what is the threshold for paying tax etc?
The best way to structure the remuneration package to take advantage of tax thresholds and allowances would be to primarily pay the director with no other income (i.e. works Mon to Fri) a small salary of approx £7,000 per year. Subject to no other income being received, no PAYE or NIC payments will be remitted to HMRC, but will allow the director to receive their NI credit for state pension through declaration on the year-end P35. The remaining remuneration package can be based on the withdrawal of dividends, which will avoid the payment on NI and can be capped at the income tax thresholds to avoid higher rates of tax where appropriate. The payment of different levels of dividend dependent on the work done can be structure via different classes of share. To adequately plan the most appropriate dividend levels, all income of each of the directors and the level of distributable reserves would need to be considered.