Do we just wait or is there something we can do to move things on?

helsbells1972

Hi

I am new to the forum, and we could really do with some advice. On Friday 7th May my husband was give a very 'woolie' letter with instructions from his employer not to return to work the following week as they were meeting with an Insolvency Practitioner and the company would cease trading. It was the week before the employees were due to get paid, obviously they haven't been. The letter stated that they would be advised of there redundancy entitlements within a 'few days'!

Within hours of this happening the owners had cleared out the premises. We have heard nothing with regards to the name of the Insolvency Practitioner who apparently were appointed on Friday 21st May. I have made enquiries to the insolvency service and have downloaded all the forms required for my husband to claim Statutory Redundancy and Notice but without knowing who the Insolvency Practitioner is we are stuck. My husbands employer claims he has been advised 'not to talk to anyone'!! The firm he used to do his accounts claim they do not know what is happening either. (Without wanted to sound paranoid..there are lots of very strange things happening that we feel may not be completely legally).

Can we claim for these weeks that my husband hasn't been paid, or put in a claim for unfair dismissal because at the moment apart from the initial very vague letter we have heard nothing.

We would really appreciate any ideas, or shared experiences.

Thanks

anniecave

It's not a limited company is it? If so it would show on the companies house website if it went into receivership and receivers were appointed.

Assuming the company has gone under, you should be able to put in the usual claim for pay not received and statutory redundancy. It's not unfair dismissal - that would be something completely different.

helsbells1972

Hi anniecave

It is a limited company, so we will try companies house, thanks very much for the advice, really stressy situation, not helped the owners not communicating, not very nice really considering my husband and his colleague have work for them for 20 years + and worked round the clock at times to keep things going. Oh well onwards and upwards as they say...on to better things hopefully.

All the best Helen.

markandkate

Hi the eaisest course of action is to put in a claim to the National Insurance Fund. They are your protection to get redundancy and other payments if the company goes into liquidation. If the company have not gone into liquidation then they will tell you almost immediately ( as they will not be paying out!)

If the company are in liquidation then you will get some of the money that you are owed but they will oly pay on a maximum of I think £380 per week. but will pay salary in lieu of notice holiday pay un paid wages and redundancy.

If the company has not gone into liquidation but just closed down then your options are very limited. If there are a group of people affected hten you can sue the company if you are owed more than £750 and then apply to wind the company up and then they will be liquidation and you can go to the National Insuance Fund. This way is long winded and can be costly and is only really worth considering if there is a group of you affected who can share the cost.

Assuming the worst the only way that you are going to get any money is if you can find some one to sue and they have assets that you can take if they do not pay.

In the mean time your husband must sign on for JSA and apply for help with tax credits, rent and council tax.

It will not hurt to put in an unfair dismissal claim if your claim to the National Insurance Fund is turned down as you will need a provable debt if you want to go down the winding up of the company route.

helsbells1972

Hi markandkate

We already have completed the forms to claim from National Insurance fund, they need to know who the insolvency practitioner is before we can submit them though!..so were still stuck there. My hubby has already signed on to JSA and we've sorted the tax credits (I think!..a recent letter from them was clear as mud so I'll be calling them after the bank holiday). I don't think we can get any help with our mortgage yet until we can claim on our insurance (56 days) and they will also want to know who is dealing with the insolvency. We are considering calling in receivers ourselves as creditors along with my husbands colleagues (as they are owed wages), (depends on legal costs) we are waiting for advice from our local offical receivers. We do know that there are court appointed baliffs involved so hopefully a supplier will act first, if we don't here soon. The worst thing, besides the money is the total disregard for length of service and devotion from the workforce, if only the owners would just speak to us!

Thank you so much to your advice, you have reconfirmed most of which I thought to be the case, I think we will be speaking to CAB on Tuesday and then maybe a Solicitor.

Wish us luck.

Thanks again.

H