"Unfreezing" a company bank account

[w1how]

A friend has had a long running dispute with the landlord of a building he rents,and had ended up being threatened with a winding up order.At this point he paid the ammount due(he stopped paying rent to try and force the dispute to be resolved),however he has now had his company bank account frozen despite having settled the dispute some weeks ago.What is the proceedure to reinstate the account?

Edited by w1how on Thursday 2nd November 10:43

[jamesuk28]

If a statutory demand was issued as a precursor to the winding up petition, then major creditors may have got wind of this. Its not unusual for credit cards to be declined, suppliers to stop supplying etc.

He is going to have to contact the bank and find out exactly why the account has been frozen, if its linked to the above he will have to issue a certificate of satisfaction assuming he got a CCJ, if not the bank will have to contact the creditor to confirm the petition has been cancelled.

That said his credit rating has probably already been damaged.

[w1how]

The winding up hearing went ahead and was dismissed because the ammount had been paid.The landlords legal costs have to be paid by my friend.He has contacted their solicitors and they have asked the bank to call them to confirm that the case has been dismissed,which seems pretty straightforward however the bank are saying 'its more complicated than that'(the admin staff could not elaborate and his bank manager(NATWEST) has yet to return his call despite being chased for 2 days!).My friend is nervous because its payday tomorrow and with a frozen account he cant pay his employees wages!!

Edited by w1how on Thursday 2nd November 11:57

[jamesuk28]

Well the frozen account may have nothing to do with the petition, and banks don't just freeze accounts without warning or good reason. I think you may find there is a lot more to this than your friend is letting on. For god sake tell him not to issue cheques to his staff as a short term fix if they are drawn on the frozen account. They will bounce and that means he is technically trading while insolvent which is a serious offence.