Question 1: I am owed €7,489.00 by a company that is refusing to pay me. Can I wind up the company to get my money?

You can certainly try but winding up a company is not an easy task.  It involves engaging the Court process to have a Liquidator appointed to wind up the debtor company. Any creditor of a company can petition the courts to wind up the debtor company but the practicalities of doing so must be seriously considered before going down this route. It is an expensive process involving many court applications and advertising costs as all creditors will need to be notified of your petition to wind up the company.

The debt must be over €1,270.00 to use this procedure but in reality a winding up petition is not appropriate unless there is a large debt owing and the debtor company has considerable assets. If a Court grants a petition to wind up a company (and the court has the ultimate discretion whether or not to do so), an Official Liquidator will be appointed. The Liquidator’s job is to realize the assets of the company to discharge the debts of creditors.

 It is important to note that just because you obtain the winding up order does not grant you an automatic right to first pick of the proceeds. There is a pecking order as follows; the costs of the liquidator must be firstly paid, followed by payments to secured/preferential creditors. For example, claims by the Revenue Commissioners to PAYE and PRSI contributions already deducted from employee’s wages but not yet paid have preferential status. Finally unsecured creditors will receive the balance, if there is any! Furthermore, stamp duty must be paid on the proceeds of realization before the assets can be distributed. Unfortunately, in the majority of liquidations there are little or no funds left to satisfy the claims of unsecured creditors.

A debtor company should be carefully evaluated to ascertain if there are sufficient assets which can be realized to pay all of the above before making a decision to wind up a company. In your circumstances where the debt owing is only €7,489.00 and it is unlikely that you are a secured creditor, I believe a winding up order would only serve to benefit the other secured and preferential creditors.

Question 2: I made a will with a solicitor in Dublin a number of years ago.   My circumstances have changed entirely and I now want to revoke that will but I have not yet made up my mind about what to put in my new will.     Is it enough for me to write or telephone the solicitor in Dublin and tell him to destroy my will?

The short answer to your question is no.   It would not be sufficient to write or phone the Dublin solicitor and instruct him to destroy the will.    Section 85 of the Succession Act, 1965 provides that if you wish to revoke your will by destroying it  you yourself must carry out the destruction or alternatively the destruction can be carried out by somebody else at your direction but it must be in your presence.    Therefore writing to or phoning the solicitor in Dublin would not be sufficient.

 You could write to the solicitor in Dublin and tell him what you intend and ask him to send the original will to you so that you can destroy it yourself.   I would suggest that you carry out the destruction in the presence of at least one witness so that there will be no doubt about the matter.

 A will can also be revoked by another will or by a written declaration of intention to revoke but this written declaration must be executed in the same manner in which a will is executed.     Even if you have not yet made up your mind on your new will you could call to a local solicitor and ask him or her to prepare and attend to the execution of the declaration of revocation.     Perhaps,  even if you have not entirely made up your mind as to what you intend to do with all your assets  after your death you can always do a partial will in respect of those about which you have made  a decision.   Your solicitor will be able to advise you on this.