A year of hell....advice needed please

[vbangs]

We purchased a business around a year ago from 'friends' we'd known for 7 or 8 years. It was a good price and the accounts looked good. Everything checked out so we went ahead and bought the business.

We now have some major problems with our 'friends', the previous owners.

The previous owner has now set up as a sole trader and is offering the same services as us. He has also been using old stationary of ours and passing himself off as the company that he sold to us. He has been invoicing work on our invoices with our VAT number but he is not VAT registered and he has banked the money in his personal account. He has contacted companies we advertise with and changed the contact details of our adverts and then signed cheques from our accounts to pay for them (his wife did our book keeping for a period and was heavily involved in our finances). He persistently trys to buy things on our accounts. He has solicited work from many of our customers. We used to employ him and his wife and in this period they were giving customers alternative contact details and diverting work to their new business. We have since found out that there are many items owned by the company that we never new existed and we never recieved these items in the sale of the business. We have since found out that the company has a fairly shocking reputation with a lot of businesses in the local area. The works order list was also falsified at the time of the sale. He is also trading using a trading name of ours to purposefully blur the destinction between the two companies. They also borrowed one of our vehicles which incurred some damage. We were told this would be sorted and have since found out they put an insurance claim in on our policy which we did not authorise.

Theres much more that has happened but i don't want to write a huge essay.

They have cost us approx £150k with their actions......we also paid £400k for the business but did not get what we paid for.

We deferred part of the payment for the sale of the business and they retained 25% between them. They have since seperated and are getting divorced. His wife has now decided that she's had enough of lying and screwing people and has come completely clean and provided us with lots of proof to substantiate our claims. We also have our own evidence that we have aquired from customers and suppliers and also things we have 'accidentally' come accross. His wife has agreed that we shouldn't have to pay her her share of the deferred amount and she will transfer her 12.5% shares to us. She says she has had 30 years of physical and mental abuse and was bullied and dominated by her ex. I can totally understand this as he is a very aggressive man and i have experienced this first hand via death threats, shouting and screaming over the phone and hurling abuse towards myself. He has also threatened to attack my partner and one of her friends whilst she's in the house alone. The man is out of control and is on medication for depression with many 'failed' suicide atempts.

We've contacted the police several times and they're not interested even though his ex wifes house is kitted out with panick alarms and she gets a full armed response within minutes if the button is pressed.

We've contacted our solicitor regarding not paying him the remaining money we owe as he has cost us far more than what we owe for the remaining shares. The only issue is that he is the type of man that will stop at nothing to put us out of business. Even if it costs him 100k.

How can you defend yourself against someone like this? The problem with the legal system is that the richest man always seems to win. Any decent solicitors won't work on a 'no win, no fee' basis and anyone that will is probably not any good (is this correct?). He has threatened many people in the past and has terrorised numerous people over the years. Theres a list of people a mile long who he has threatened, upset, abused, bullied.....etc. How do you stop a guy who thinks he's untouchable and above the law without going to jail and without it costing hundreds of throusands of pounds?

We're considering liquidation as it's taking up too much time and causing too much stress that it's not worth it.

Anyone any ideas?

[richardm1964]

The best solution to all of your problems is approach the Court and knock the door of justice. But you should have all sorts of documentary evidence such as VAT number in your name/ company, records of transaction of your past customers etc.