Do you know someone who's war-chest ran out?

[eek]

I do the same but am worse (or better depending on how you look at it) as a contractor than I was permie. It used to be making ends meet and savings. Now it is a lot more about the future.

If I didn't know better I would call you scottish...

[darmstadt]

Are you a pirate?

Funny you should mention that, a few people at work have commented on that and I'm still at a loss why. I thought it was normal to have a parrot on your shoulder...

[mudskipper]

You are accurately depicting the assertions made by the other poster.

'General' should be posts that don't quite fit into another category. On the majority of forums posting in a general non-specific topic genre doesn't result in one being derided at every opportunity.

In fact this thread has clearly displayed exactly what masonryan indicated: far too much abuse far too readily dished out - and it's viewed as acceptable by some in a sheep-like manner.

Tell you what, how about the cronies take their persist unamusing 'banter' to "Light Relief" category instead? That is surely where persistently rude and cyclical so-called humourous responses belong and can therefore be expected at every turn? It would make much more sense to reshape the forum in this way.

Yet another interesting thread decimated by the typical few who can't afford seriousness - and deviate to outright rudeness - just because it's in 'General', which does not invalidate the right of people to post in such a section to get valid and constructive responses, given that 'General' is probably the best place for this thread.

If anybody else tires of it, might be worth also sending some feedback to the main admin-of-the-admins.

Have you read masonryan's other posts? And they were in the professional forums!

[d000hg]

I've been very close, and it came out of nowhere - suddenly I calculated we had enough money for 1-2 months when I'd been happy we were quite comfortable. A combination of a client who was very slow paying, and ultimately never paid about £20k, and not realising how long I'd been on the bench.

Was very stressful but then out of the blue, just as I was wondering what on earth to do, a former client called me and asked if I could take a contract. Since then I've always been paranoid, even though I have been lucky to stay working almost continually the last 3 years, and very conservative.

[craig1]

But he said, and I quote "He got to keep his house", in reference to the bankruptcy.

Yes, he did. Personal bankruptcy. The company's sole creditor was my friend. He "loaned" his company enough money to buy the hardware and pay his ongoing costs, expecting it to be repaid when the first invoices started being paid to his company. Suppliers these days tend to want payment on order or at the latest on despatch for orders from small companies meaning he had few options.

To do so, he used almost all of his liquid assets except for enough to pay the bills for a few months and loaned it to his company. His wife wasn't earning at the time. By the time he stopped providing services, 5 months had passed and he was paying for everything on credit cards, racking up silly levels of debt to pay for his commute to the client, his normal bills, his mortgage, etc. Thankfully he was fully up to date with the mortgage when he realised that he had few options but bankruptcy, this made it far easier for the OR to temporarily exclude the house from the bankruptcy while investigations were being made into the company assets.

The OR treated the company as a personal asset as he was 100% shareholder. It was seized and the sole source of company potential revenue was the outstanding debt from the client. The OR also seized his car as that was above the £2000 (iirc) limit of car value that a bankrupt is allowed to keep. The OR then tallied up the remaining outstanding debts my friend had, as well as the OR's fees, and made the client an offer of pay that much and the OR would drop the case, refuse and the OR would continue the suit but with the OR's resources behind the case. The client caved, my friend had no say in the matter but did end up being severely out of pocket and with no recourse to re-open any suit to reclaim the extra owed money.

The OR said to him when his bankruptcy was cancelled that he'd still have great difficulty running a business as banks tend to be very slow to remove records of cancelled bankruptcies from their records and he'd be getting unexplained credit check "declines" for a substantial amount of time.

[russell]

Yes, he did. Personal bankruptcy.

Ah ok.

[masonryan]

My accountant tells me not to pay myself money the company doesn't have.

What's stopping my company borrowing a lot of money when the company is doing well, then use this to pay salary when on the bench? If a new contract doesn't come along and this money runs out... then the company can go into liquidation, correct? Nothing really stopping me from starting a new company and repeating this procedure, is there?

[DirtyDog]

My accountant tells me not to pay myself money the company doesn't have.

What's stopping my company borrowing a lot of money when the company is doing well, then use this to pay salary when on the bench? If a new contract doesn't come along and this money runs out... then the company can go into liquidation, correct? Nothing really stopping me from starting a new company and repeating this procedure, is there?

If you expect an informed, professional answer to this accountancy / legal question, you might consider posting it in the accounting / legal sub-forum.

HTHBIDI

[doodab]

My accountant tells me not to pay myself money the company doesn't have.

What's stopping my company borrowing a lot of money when the company is doing well, then use this to pay salary when on the bench? If a new contract doesn't come along and this money runs out... then the company can go into liquidation, correct? Nothing really stopping me from starting a new company and repeating this procedure, is there?

You're unlikely to be able to borrow a lot of money without offering substantial collateral such as a directors guarantee secured against your house.

[masonryan]

The OR said to him when his bankruptcy was cancelled that he'd still have great difficulty running a business as banks tend to be very slow to remove records of cancelled bankruptcies from their records and he'd be getting unexplained credit check "declines" for a substantial amount of time.

This doesn't seem to affect one particular dodgy director I am thinking of, who has started new companies as director numerous times after failing to pay creditors in a previous company whilst paying himself a huge salary just before it went to the wall.