Winding up petition limit

[fridaypassion]

For the second time I'm looking at chasing a debt from a company. In the first instance they owed me some money it was about £1000. Its extremely rare for me to extend any credit to anyone but the first company was a very prominent company in a small world I operate my business in (Lotus cars and parts). Anyway after a lot of buggering about I filled in the forms for a winding up petition and that got me the invoice paid immediately.

A situation has arisen now whereby another prominent company also operating in this small world of ours has relieved me of £700 for some parts which have gone missing on transit. Unfortunate but nothing too pressing. They have put a claim in with the Royal mail and I have requested they just refund the £700 and sort it out with RM. I have received a form from RM to ask me to sign to confirm I havent received the delivery which I havent. The company involved for some reason will not supply me with the tracking information. The whole thing has gone on about a month in total.

I understand the limit for a winding up petition is £700. Can I reasonably add a £100 admin cost into this to enable the total debt to be over the petition limit?

[williaa68]

You'll struggle. Normally to petition for winding up you first need to serve (and have evidence of service of) a statutory demand. Only once that has gone unpaid can you petition - you need an undisputed debt otherwise the company can just apply to get the petition dismissed AND they can apply for costs, which could be substantial. They may decide paying a small debt is easier but they may not. How did you pay for the goods? Any chance of doing a chargeback on a credit card? If not then your only real option is to sue them via money claim online. The fee for a £700 debt is £60 which will take you over the threshold. They may dispute (what do the terms and conditions say about delivery?) but you will get there eventually. Good luck.

[anonymous-user]

fridaypassion said:

I understand the limit for a winding up petition is £700. Can I reasonably add a £100 admin cost into this to enable the total debt to be over the petition limit?

It's £750. And unless you have a contract whcih allows you to charge admin fees as a debt at a prescribed rate that adds up to £100, no. The admin fees you want to claim aren't a debt, they are what you're claiming as damages.

[fridaypassion]

Cheers for the replies managed to resolve late last night.