When a company runs into trouble, almost everyone a director speaks to has an interest of their own. HMRC wants the tax collected. The lender wants the facility repaid. A creditor wants its invoice settled ahead of the queue. Each of them will explain your position, and each explanation will be shaped by what they need from you.
That is why the sequence matters. A director who understands their own position before entering a formal process makes better decisions in it: about assets, about timing, about which liabilities genuinely attach to them personally and which sit with the company. A director who does not can spend the whole process reacting.
Our role is to give you that understanding first. We assess the company’s real position, what it owes, what it owns, what guarantees have been signed, where the director’s loan account sits, and set out the options in plain English. Where a formal process is right, we introduce you to a licensed insolvency practitioner and stay alongside you as you work through it. Where it is not, we say so; there is no incentive for us to push you into a process you do not need.
HMRC pressure is the most common reason directors reach us. Arrears on PAYE, VAT or corporation tax rarely stay still, and the gap between a first reminder and enforcement action can close quickly. Bounce Back Loans are the second. Both are survivable positions far more often than directors assume, but the range of survivable outcomes narrows with every week that passes.
The same is true of personal guarantees and overdrawn director’s loan accounts. Neither is unusual, and neither is automatically catastrophic. What causes harm is discovering their effect at the point where nothing can be done about it. Most directors we speak to are not reckless; they are simply working with an incomplete picture of their own exposure.
We deal with company insolvency and director advisory only; we do not give personal insolvency or personal debt advice, so enquiries reach the right people quickly. If your issue sits outside that, we will tell you on the first call rather than waste your time.
That first call is free, confidential and carries no obligation, and the line is open twenty-four hours a day, every day. There is nothing to lose by finding out where you stand, and, in our experience, a great deal to lose by waiting.