This is quite a story !!

Back in July 2007 I was working for a small heating business. The owner at that time also had a large profitable business and I had been led to believe that he purposefully made it look like the smaller business hadnt made a profit – for tax reasons I believe.

Now this chap had become a friend after working for him for a few years and he asked i I would like to take the business on so that he could follow other avenues. He showed my figures and made be believe that the company was profitable (I was young and naive) so I took on a £25000 loan.

To cut a long story short he said to me that I did not need to pay him until the company made a profit and to keep the £25,000 as working capital. The trouble is the overheads were so high that it never made a profit. I tried moving premises to work from home and also made the office girl (his daughter) redundant but copped for paying her redundancy (3/4 yrs worth) even though I’d only ran the company for around 8 months. Also to give you an idea she was on £16,500 for part time hours (one of the many overheads !)

Any way after just over a year the business had swallowed my £25,000 and I’d spent my savings (circa £7,000) on wages for myself, so I shut it down and sold the assets (4 vehicles, computor, small amount of stock)

I’m still paying the original loan as I refused to go bankrupt (like an idiot !) and still have 5 years left.

I recieved communication last year from the bloke in question saying that the time to pay had arrived and that I owed him £20,000. I emailed him about the trouble I’d had, the verbal agreement about paying him when the company made a profit and the fact that we had no written contract. He never replied.

He has now contacted me again, apologising for the 14 month delay in coming back to me and stated that I owe him £18,000 unless I want to settle the debt privately, in which case it would be £16,000.

The thought of taking another huge loan scares the crap out of me ! I’m now 29 and only just getting myself straight. I have no mortgage and a car on HP.

Do you think I’d have a case if this went to court ? I’m going to see the Citizens advice bureau as soon as I can as I dont know where to turn or what to do next ?

It has crossed my mind that he’s waited this long so that some of the records are now no longer ‘available’ although I dont know the ins and outs. How long can he chase me for ? I fear that I could be taken for theft as I sold the assets (although the vehicles were transferred to me) ?

I guess I may just have to take the loan ?

Any advice appreciated as always

Technorati Tags: assets, avenues, bloke, chap, crap, office girl, overheads, part time, premises, profitable business, redundancy, stock, time hours, verbal agreement, wages, working capital

Can you tell me what ‘freedoms’ or ‘rights’ you may have lost under this bill?

What it has taken away from you on a personal or financial level as of this minute?

Did you lose your citizenship status? Did the United States suddenly change its name to "United Soviet Socialist Republic" overnight?

Are we now a part of Communist China? North Korea?

If it hasn’t, what are you deathly afraid of?

Progress? Change? Living in the 21st century instead of the 19th?

Because what I see is this:

You either make too much money or not enough, and yet you *complain* that having health care reform and having to pay for coverage will just make things *worse*!

Worse for *who*…?

Worse for those whom spent themselves into debt trying to live the high life? Or those of us whom can’t budget responsibly and want everyone else to support them out of habit or blind sympathy?

If you believe that buying an expensive car, and expensive house, and all the fancy materialistic garbage that clutters and fills your place of residence is more *important* to you than having affordable health care, then why should you be the first in the line to *complain*?

After all, you don’t *care*. You simply want the money for yourself to do whatever you damn well please!

It’s not *you* that we are worried about…

But that’s not a loss of freedoms or rights. When the government proposes legislation that allows them to spy on you without just cause, wiretaps your phones, bugs your computers, and searches your premises without the proper warrants…?

*That* is a loss of rights and freedoms! That is fascism!

When the government goes against the people for the sake of weeding out whatever "enemy" they think is hiding amongst us, then we have a serious problem that should be openly addressed.

But when the government comes along to address an issue that has been plaguing this country for decades…?

It’s not evil. It’s not intruding on your privacy, it’s not telling you what to do and how to live, and it certainly is not robbing anyone of their Constitutional rights!

What it is doing is getting the people organized and on a plan to better health and affordability.

Why would you be against being more healthy and having an affordable insurance plan that offers better coverage than what you have before?

For those of us whom can’t live within our means, it’s going to be a hellish nightmare come to life–including those corporate businesses whom now have to start *paying* more coverage for their work forces.

Oh, yes, they are going to go on about how it may bankrupt their precious bottom lines, sap a tenth of their overall profit margins every year, but those of us whom work for these types are going to be a little more secure in the knowledge that Big Business is finally getting put on notice and on the path to greater responsibility for their people; instead of being financially reckless and arrogant.

For those of us whom need this kind of reform, we’re going to be very happy.

We are going to have what we dreamed out!

And while the legislation and its ‘fixer-bill’ companion isn’t perfect, it is the right step towards equality for all.

Better health care, lower costs, less waiting in the emergency rooms, and no more lapses in coverage or ‘droppings’–because we are either sick or have become sick.

Thoughts?

Technorati Tags: 21st century, affordable health care, blind sympathy, bugs, citizenship status, communist china, decades, expensive car, fascism, garbage, habit, health care reform, north korea, premises, rights and freedoms, sake, soviet socialist republic, warrants, weeding, wiretaps