🚨 CRITICAL SITUATION
Wincham has transferred company funds (proceeds from the €315,000 property sale) directly into your personal UK bank account. Under UK law, you and the company are entirely separate legal entities.
By placing company cash in your personal account without a formal dividend declaration or MVL distribution, Wincham has effectively created a massive, unauthorized "Director’s Loan." If not corrected immediately, HMRC will levy a 33.75% tax penalty (Section 455) and hit you with severe Income Tax charges on the "Benefit in Kind."
Do not panic. Follow these exact steps immediately to cure the breach.
Step 1
Quarantine the Personal Account (Immediate)
The money currently sitting in your personal account is legally "toxic".
- Do not spend a single penny of it.
- Do not move it to a savings account to earn interest.
- Do not mix it with your personal daily spending.
If you spend any of this money, HMRC will argue that you intentionally extracted the capital for personal use, destroying your defense that Wincham made an administrative error.
Step 2
Open a UK Corporate Bank Account (24-48 Hours)
You must open a business bank account solely in the name of Los Romeros Limited.
Traditional high-street banks take weeks. Because Los Romeros is a non-trading company, use an FCA-regulated digital "challenger bank" via a smartphone app (setup usually takes 24 hours).
Recommended Banks:
- Tide (Fastest, very common for SPVs)
- Starling Business
- Monzo Business
What you will need:
- Your smartphone and personal ID (Passport/Driving Licence).
- The Company Registration Number: 06993349.
- If asked for the industry/trade, explain it is a "Property Holding Company (SPV)" holding cash reserves prior to liquidation.
Step 3
Reverse the Transfer (Immediately upon account opening)
The moment the Los Romeros Limited corporate account is active:
- Log into your personal bank account.
- Transfer the EXACT SUM (down to the exact penny) back to the new Los Romeros Limited corporate account.
- CRITICAL: Set the payment reference on the transfer exactly as:
ERROR CORRECTION - CO FUNDS
✅ Result
By doing this, the "Director's Loan" is instantly repaid. The company's balance sheet is restored, and the Section 455 tax risk drops to £0.
Step 4
Create the Audit Trail (Without Notifying Wincham)
Because you are preparing for litigation against Wincham, do not contact them about this error. Alerting them gives them a chance to prepare a defense or tamper with records.
Instead, you must create a contemporaneous "internal" paper trail to prove to HMRC that you spotted Wincham's negligence and fixed it independently.
Send this exact email to yourself (and save it as a PDF record):
SUBJECT: Record of Correction - Wincham Bank Transfer Negligence
DATE: [Insert Today's Date]
COMPANY: Los Romeros Limited
This email serves as a formal contemporaneous record.
Without my authorization, Wincham negligently transferred company proceeds from the Lanzarote property sale directly into my personal UK bank account, failing to advise me that this creates a Section 455 Director's Loan risk.
I have not contacted Wincham to correct this due to impending professional negligence litigation against them.
Instead, I took immediate action to cure their breach. I opened a corporate bank account for Los Romeros Limited and reversed the exact sum back into the company's name. This corrects the unauthorized loan and restores the company balance sheet.
Step 5
Proceed with the MVL (Next Week)
Once the funds are safely sitting in the new Los Romeros Limited business bank account, the crisis is averted.
- Engage an independent Insolvency Practitioner (IP).
- The IP will see the funds correctly domiciled in the company name.
- The IP will take control of that corporate account, swear the Declaration of Solvency with you, and distribute the net funds back to you legally under Capital Gains Tax rules (18%-24%).
Summary Checklist for this week
Freeze the funds in your personal account.
Download the Tide or Starling app and open an account for Los Romeros Ltd.
Transfer the exact amount back using the reference
ERROR CORRECTION - CO FUNDS.
Send the internal email to yourself to establish the audit trail (Do not contact Wincham).