Beware of Unqualified Advice
Unqualified advice continues to plague the corporate insolvency industry which is why company directors must be on-guard and seek qualified and reputable advice from licensed insolvency practitioners.
In recent years, we’ve seen unfortunate growth in the number of rogue advisers –particularly online – who often purport to be regulated firms with licensed IPs but are often merely lead generation websites that demand upfront fees and act as middlemen before passing your enquiry onto rogue ‘advisory’ firms with no reputation or regulation.
Our approach couldn’t be more different. We act as standard-bearers for the corporate insolvency industry with 70 licensed insolvency practitioners across the country handling more corporate insolvency appointments in 2014 than any other firm.
In many cases, we advise directors who have become exasperated by their experience with such advisers. Many of these concerns are common themes and act as a huge warning sign of a rogue, unlicensed or untrustworthy corporate insolvency firm.
- Charging up-front fees before any work has been carried out
- Charging up-front fees by a middleman who then passes you to an insolvency practitioner
- Overbilling for ‘time spent’ which doesn’t represent the amount of work carried out
- Exuberant promises that debts would be written off without even understanding my company’s level of debts or whether debts were personally guaranteed
- Pushiness on the phone towards a particular service when other services would be more beneficial
- Poor or no communication after a fee had been paid
- Failure to explain the chosen process, e.g. Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation, clearly
- Creditors still hounding you, despite being under the protection of a formal insolvency solution, which your practitioner should have contacted them about
- Unhelpful about redundancies and how it would affect your workforce
- The process seemed very slow and/or the adviser did not return your calls
If any of these strike a chord with you from your experience with a ‘corporate insolvency adviser’, we would urge you to speak with one of our licensed insolvency practitioners today. We offer a free initial consultation to all directors and can advise on a range of corporate solutions including HMRC arrears, winding up petitions, statutory demands, cash flow problems, finance options and more.