How it started
We ran a family construction company that had traded successfully for a number of years. The business had grown, but cash flow was always tight — and that problem was made worse by the behaviour of our customers. They were larger companies with more leverage than us, and we found ourselves at their mercy. Some didn’t pay on time. Some withheld retentions after remedial works had been completed. Others simply didn’t pay at all. We did everything we could to keep the business alive, but in the end it had to go into liquidation.
That triggered personal guarantees of around £250,000 — debts my wife and I had both signed for. We hadn’t been taking a salary. We’d been putting everything we had back into the business, expecting our customers to pay. They didn’t, and our savings were wiped out. When we added it all up, our personal credit cards were over £85,000 — the balances had grown quickly because we’d been using one card to pay another. We had also borrowed money from our friends, who happened to be our neighbours. The plan had been to use those funds to develop a plot of land between our two properties, but of course the money had been absorbed by the business.
We asked the liquidator for help. They gave us some advice but explained they couldn’t assist with our personal position. They did, however, recommend we speak to Priti Shah at Lightside.
I still remember that first meeting. We drove from Essex to meet her in London. We met at a hotel, somewhere quiet, and it felt completely different from the accountant’s boardroom where we’d met the liquidator — more relaxed, less formal, less like we were being processed.
We had driven to London not knowing what to expect — braced, if we are honest, for more bad news after weeks of difficult conversations with accountants, lawyers, and the liquidator. My wife and I were in our fifties. The thought of losing our home and having to start again felt devastating. But that meeting changed everything.
Priti asked questions and listened carefully, then laid out a strategy — all in that first conversation, before we had paid a penny. She told us our home would be safe, that we would not be starting from scratch, and that she had a plan. Just hearing that was an enormous relief. She then walked us through the detail so that we understood exactly what would happen and why.
The Outcome, in brief
Priti Shah, Lightside Financial · Referred by Insolvency Practitioner
We instructed Lightside. Everything Priti said would happen did happen. We kept our home. We are debt free.
Facing personal guarantees or the threat of losing your home?
If a business failure has left you facing personal guarantees, credit card debt, or the prospect of losing your home, the position is rarely as straightforward — or as hopeless — as it first appears. The right structure can make the difference. We are happy to talk through your situation before you commit to anything.
The work behind the outcome
The IVA was accepted. A single lump sum was paid. Mr. and Mrs. B were debt free within ten months of their first meeting with Lightside. Their home was protected. They were free to act as directors of a new business — this time in healthcare, a deliberate fresh start in a different direction. And the joint venture land development with their neighbours — the project that had brought them all together in the first place — could finally go ahead.
Following a thorough initial meeting with Mr. and Mrs. B, we identified a clear path that would protect their home and resolve their debts as quickly as possible.
The first step was to address the money borrowed from their neighbours. The loan was supported by legal documentation, but the neighbours had not yet registered their interest against the property title at HM Land Registry — something their own solicitors had recommended but that had not been acted upon, given that the two families were friends and on the point of entering a joint venture together. We advised Mr. and Mrs. B that the neighbours should register restrictions on the title immediately, and we communicated this recommendation to them directly. They were grateful for the prompt. Crucially, the documents did not confer a power of sale, so Mr. and Mrs. B’s occupation of their home remained secure.
At the same time, we took control of communications with the credit card providers and the holders of the personal guarantee debt. We requested 60-day payment holds and negotiated interest freezes across the board, halting any escalating creditor action. This bought the time needed to put a permanent solution in place.
We then structured a full and final IVA. Although the property was valued at £1.4 million, once the secured neighbour debt was properly accounted for, the available equity was negligible. We prepared a detailed creditor comparison demonstrating that a one-off lump sum IVA — funded by their neighbours, who despite already being owed money chose to provide additional funds because they believed in the joint venture and in Mr. and Mrs. B — would produce a better return than bankruptcy, in which creditors would have received nothing. On that basis, creditors would receive approximately 8 pence in the pound.
We sought informal approval from creditors before any costs were incurred. Once we had sufficient confidence that the proposal would pass, we turned our work to the introducing insolvency practitioner, who used our documentation as the basis for the formal IVA proposal and managed the creditor vote through to completion.
The IVA was accepted. A single lump sum was paid. Mr. and Mrs. B were debt free within ten months of their first meeting with Lightside. Their home was protected. They were free to act as directors of a new business — this time in healthcare, a deliberate fresh start in a different direction. And the joint venture land development with their neighbours — the project that had brought them all together in the first place — could finally go ahead.