Insolvency of business I have been dealing with - need advice please

[NeedInsolvencyAdvicePlease]

Hi have namechanged for this as I have not told other people involved yet and they are on this site. I have been dealing with a business since before Xmas to sell some personal items and today in the post I received a letter from a company advising they are dealing with the liquidation of the business I've been working with. I am shortly due to receive a payment from them for items they sold at the start of the month, less their fees. In addition, they have other items in their possession which have not yet been sold.

This letter includes a form for proof of debt which I have been asked to complete and send back to them by a certain date, as there will be a meeting on this date to make a decision on forming a liquidation committee. I had tried to contact the business a couple of times since New Year in relation to items I wished them to deal with but didn't think too much of them when I got no response from them. Now I know why!

I know absolutely nothing about what is going on here, the letter is legal gobbledegook which I do not really understand, is there anyone out there who is knowledgeable on this kind of process and can give me advice on what is going on please (in layman's terms, hopefully!)? I do not want to discuss this with relatives until I have a better handle on what's going on and where we stand as they will likely be even more stressed than I am about this! Thanks for any advice you can offer

The letter is basically asking you to confirm that they owe you money, and how much.

I think you'll be added to a list of people owed money by the company and depending on the financial situation you will be paid in full, or paid x amount per £ owed.

If you can prove you supplied them goods that they still likely have and haven't yet paid you for, ask for a retention of title claim form. You will likely get your stock back.
You also need to submit the proof of debt form to formally add yourself as a debtor of the company. You may not get any money back any time soon, esp if they owe HMRC, banks and other preferential debtors.

You may very well not get your money now from the items they have sold or if you do, it will be a pittance.

The items you have left with them, go and get them!!!!! Do not leave them there as the administrators may well sell them on behalf of the Company in order to raise money to pay people like you 10p for every £ they owe you.

My boss had a customer who went under and they owed us a lot of money. He took a van, went to their premises and just loaded up the van with the goods they had not paid for. You need to do this.

Go and get what you can back if you can as it will be sold off. Can you call the insolvency company that are dealing with it and ask if some one will explain the situation to you.

There are three stages to this and this is in the very early stages. How much do they owe you? Is it substantial?

Your not the debtor your the creditor.

Thank you all for the replies. I'm not sure of the exact amount owed to me, I think its about £350. I'm completely unsure of value of the unsold items, it may be similar or more. I think I may need to write those off, their company is nearly 300 miles away. I feel terrible as these are items I inherited from my late father.

OP is it an auction house? If so, they should have a separate client account that holds vendors' money and isn't used for running the business.

Yes it's an auction house. I'll call the insolvency company tomorrow and speak to them further about all this.

How did you get on OP?