Calling all legal eagles! (and police)

[Greebo]

If they are insolvent (which if they can't pay their debts, then they definitely are) then all creditors have to be treated equally. You have no more right to that van than anyone else they owe money to - and even if they agreed to let you have it in payment, the court can then order you to give it back.

See here under 'Preferences'.

As much as I would normally agree to this principal, from what I can gather is the van is pretty much their only substantial asset plus some office furniture and equipment and they owe over £200,000.

Therefore, unlikely any creditors will get a bean and only the insolvancy people will get any money from this.

 

[csmager]

As much as I would normally agree to this principal, from what I can gather is the van is pretty much their only substantial asset plus some office furniture and equipment and they owe over £200,000.

If they follow the letter of the law in insolvency, then noting that they paid you (for whatever reason) and didn't pay anybody else, they can get the money back from you to split between the rest of the creditors. There might even be various fixed or floating charge holders that actually have more of a right to the money than any others.

If the van is their only asset, they're going to have to sell it at some point. I would have thought they can't use it in the new business unless they buy it for full market price from the old company, and that cash used to pay the creditors.

All that said - no real idea what you should do. Would be worth getting some proper advice rather than believing anything you read on the internet!