Builders have gone bust

[Travellingatthespeedoflight]

I can’t think clearly so would appreciate any advice.

Long story short, building company have gone bust mid-extension. I have a newborn baby born amongst the chaos and need to know if there is anything we can do, or if we just need to move on.

We stupidly paid the invoices via bank transfer - is there anyway to recoup any of the money so we can get the work finished? it’s also not signed off by building control and they are withholding the relevant images until we pay even more £. We’ve paid all but £1k and had an email from their liquidators on 17 dec. The directors have been dishonest from the start and pressured us to pay invoices knowing they were in financial distress (they laid off most of their staff in Oct etc).

The outstanding work is probably 10-20k…

Separately, is there anything that can be done to stop them opening another ltd company? One of the 3 directors has had another company go into liquidation before and 2 of the 3 directors have another joint ltd company which is still active. All are building companies.

I'm afraid it is unlikely you will get back any of the money you have paid them. You certainly won't get back anything you paid for work that has actually been carried out. Even if you have paid in advance, the liquidators first have to pay off all the higher priority debts. If there is any money left once that has been done it will be split between you and any other creditors. At best, you are only likely to get back a small proportion of anything you have paid in advance.

If you have paid in full for the work that has been carried out, I can't see any justification for the liquidators refusing to hand over the images you need. However, if you have not paid in full it is reasonable for them to retain the images until you have. Even though the business has gone under, you must still pay them for the work carried out to date.

Whether the directors should be disqualified from opening further businesses is a matter for the liquidator. The fact that one of them has another company that has gone into liquidation and two of them have another company is nowhere near enough to get them disqualified. Laying off most of their staff in October may have been an effort to save the business. Similarly, pushing you to pay invoices that were due would have helped with their cash flow. These things do not necessarily mean they are guilty of misconduct that would get them disqualified.

Thank you - what I thought but was hopeful there might be a way round it…wishful thinking.

To clarify, yes we have paid them for a huge amount of work that has not been done.

Unfortunately you won’t be able to get your money back if its gone into liquidation.

Pay no more and write to the liquidator informing them that work is incomplete and no more money will be paid by you and detail monies owed back which as another poster has mentioned you won’t get. Taxman, bank then the different levels of creditors get paid first and you are at the bottom of that list. Get a new builder. Write off the loss.

I know that is very direct and emotionally there is a whole other side to this but this will be the outcome, I’m 99.9% certain.

I think that @prh47bridge (who is a solicitor) when stating “if you have not paid in full” , means the value of the work that has been done thus far.

It seems from what you say that you have paid significantly more up front than the value of the work actually delivered.

If that i the case pay no more, and point out that there is a significant amount of money owed to you for completion of what has been paid for.

it would be worth getting a new builder in to advise how much work to complete the build will cost, and cost of regulatory sign off, because that is what you will be owed by the liquidator for the failure of the company. Although you will not be able to retrieve any significant amount.