Unsecured creditors owed £9.5m from a collapsed Liverpool firm are not expected to receive any dividend, administrators have confirmed.
Insolvency practitioners Quantuma Advisory confirmed this week that no money had been received from the work in progress of claims firm High Street Solicitors, which folded in June 2023.
The administration progress report stated that creditors were collectively owed more than £35m but so far the only significant payment has been for legal fees of around £1,800.
The company’s secured creditors were Archover Limited and VFS Legal who were collectively owed almost £9m and will receive a ‘nominal dividend’. Their loans were secured by way of a fixed and floating charge along with specific assignments of work in progress for cases that were transferred to another Liverpool firm, Angelus Law.
Following the High Street Solicitors administration, the business and assets were sold to Angelus Law for £340,000 (consisting of £20,000 upfront and £320,000 paid over 12 months). But Angelus Law was unable to secure professional indemnity insurance and was shut down by the SRA to protect the interests of clients in April 2024.
One of the High Street Solicitors directors provided a personal guarantee for the balance due from Angelus to the company, and the joint administrators have continued their review about what recoveries can be made from that individual.
A third secured creditor was Dublin-based Claims Finance & Administration Co Limited, which had 13 outstanding charges against High Street Solicitors, all created in the two years before it closed. The administrators’ report states that all CFCO-funded files were transferred prior to their appointment and therefore there is no liability to the company.
Other outstanding liabilities include £77,000 to employees, £1.4m to medical companies, expert witnesses and counsel, and £1.55m to HM Revenue & Customs.
The administrators said they had carried out investigations into certain matters that were revealed after the completion of the initial assessment, and these remain ongoing.
Pre-administration costs came to £48,000 to Quantuma and £55,000 in legal costs. Work for the past year is expected to come to £67,000 based on 161 hours at an average hourly rate of £417. The administration is now scheduled to end in June this year.
High Street Solicitors was founded in 2009 but embarked on rapid expansion in 2022 when it moved into 14,875 sq ft offices on the third floor at 1 Tithebarn Street. The firm planned to create 80 new jobs, including solicitors and heads of department, to create a total workforce of more than 150.
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