Legal Doc, That Is A Guarantee Of Payment Regardless Of Circumstances?

[joko]

is there a legally binding document i can use, that a can ask someone to sign to guarantee they will pay me what they owe, regardless of the profits they make?

its a long, riduculous story, and this guy has been promising to pay me - and most of the crew - over and over for about 4 years ... i have gone along with this as wasnt sure what else to do, but he is finally in a position where money is starting to come in from our project.

He is still being vague about it all, but i cant shake this feeling that somehow hes goign to let everyone down again.
so even if the company folded etc, i would attempt to sue him personally - because i have endless emails of his accepting full resposibilty for the mess etc

because i have not been one of the more aggressive people i'm worried he is just still fobbing us off

i even suspected he thought he'd just stall us all for 6 years thingk the debts would be wiped off then ... not realising it doesnt work like that lol

he has also said that if any of us take legal action he would have to go bankrupt and we'd all get nothing - is that true?
im sure i read there was a way to still then recover the debt individually or something?

anyway i do not intend to not get paid - he owes wages - as well as interest and late fees so its probably somewhere near £10,000 by now!

any ideas - i feel we have all been very tolerant and he does seem to be trying to put things right, but still ...

any ideas of a way i can legally get him to bind to something so no matter what happens to him financially he has to pay?

im thinking if he refuses to sign it, it would imply its because he has no intention of paying anyway


thanks for any help

[Zacs-Master]

Did you (and 'the crew') not set up a contract at the start of whatever this is about?

[joko]

yes, but its all a bit of a mess - company dissolved, then to a new company its all pretty complicated and weird.
he acknowledges the debt in emails etc and promises to pay, i just wondered if i could say - for further security, can you sign this.

its a film company and to do with funding and stuff falling through and other funding getting obtained and all kind of legal stuff for them etc

i dont mind waiting a bit longer for the money, if i could have some kind of more concrete gurantee of payment - i dont want to get a few more years and then he just says theres not enough money left, sorry, and im stuck with him shrugging and saying theres nothing he can do as the company is skint etc

[Zacs-Master]

And what did the contract say about such eventualities?

[Peter Pedant]

hmm not very many replies

the issue is rather the debt
than getting him to admit the debt ....

the legal difficulty is that you say the contract was with a company that has been dissolved... so it is all words I am afraid ....
your debt is one of the things that was dissolved

[joko]

he has acknoweledge the date and assures us the debts are now with the new company, etc - this is the issue - its all just words and i'm worried he will somehow wheedle his way out of it.
i may be being paranoid, im many ways hes been upfront and honest and accepts its all entirely his fault, but doesnt stop the fact he lied to us all

the contracts initially were fine but when the funding fell through we signed new ones with an additional aggreement to wait 3 months for payment - which we all understood that in this business thing happen etc - but as i say its 4 years later

i do believe that IF he makes loads of cash off it that he will pay up - deep down ithink he's a fairly decent guy - he just made a massive mistake and tried to blunder through it, hoping it would work out - but nothing he has done since has seemed to work out = but he'd be foolish not to pay, his name would be mud and he'd never work again - and also the new investors etc do know that there are crew to pay and other debts
but if he doesnt make enough i dont want him just shrugging and saying sorry - again.


he he keeps saying if any of us sue him he will just go backrupt and we will get nothing - but surely you cant just get out of debts by doing that?

[Peter Pedant]

we are teetering on the edge of:

"there must be a law that I dont know about that others here do,
that says that someone who has successfully walked away from debt can be made to pay it."

the short answer that you have learnt over the last 6 y is
there isnt .....

if the company has folded you have lost your money
The whole point of limited companies is that the directors liability is er limited and they can walk away personally from the company debt

your debtor appears to know this

If you are running your own business you need to write this debt off as a bad debt. the accounting limit for this is 6 months You are way over that

the lessons from this are
1) get it on a piece of paper
2) dont work for nothing
3) call it a day early and not late -if you dont get paid on Friday then make it clear working on Monday is a no no

enough lessons....