Employer not legally insolvant but wont pay wages

broke=skint

Hi, could anyone give me a bit of advise on this.
About a month ago I worked for a well known food outlet which was franchisee owned.
I turned up for work one morning to find the balifs changing the locks because my employer had broken his agreement between him self and the franchise.
I contacted him several times as I was owed roughly a months wage, he did reply to one of my emails to inform me that he would be paying the staff's wages on time.

Of course this never happened. I managed to get hold of his Accountants details who confirmed that he had been working on the months payroll but it had taken longer than usual because of holiday pay that people were owed and he was also sorting out the P45's and P60's. Still we have not received anything.

In the mean time I did a little digging, my employers company is registered at the accountants home address and my employer claimed bancrupcy in 2009. Which only leads me to beleive that the accountant and my employer were in on this together.

I made a claim to the Employment tribunal service but they said that my employer or his company are not legally insolvant. If this is the case and he has money why can't he just pay us?

I'm a little confused, can anyone suggest what I should do next?

Thanks in advance.

JCS1

I'm assuming he's stopped trading?

If they don't pay you, you may be entited to claim this money from the goverment instead.

A little "light" reading here; http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/pdfs/guidanceleafletspdf/guideforemployees.pdf

Judas

How late are we talking?
It is possible if they were suddenly forced to stop trading they are having trouble gather information for final salaries and P45's etc, especially, if they arent being allow access to the premises.

SarEl

You have to separate the facts here. The person who employed you may be solvent. But the issue is whether the entity (the company that employed you - and which exists as a separate "person" in law) is solvent. If the entity - the company - isn't then you cannot then claim against the person.

Separately, if you were employed by a company this year which was already insolvent, this is unlawful and should be reported - it won't het you what you are owed, and probably won't stop it from happening again. But you should do it anyway.

Premier_2

It's very common for a small company to use their accountant's address as their registered office.

If the accountant is a small enterprise, they may well use their home address for receiving mail (again, nothing unusual)

Who was declared bankrupt in 2009? The company which employed you (the employer), or some guy who also worked for and/or owned that company?

Your claim for overdue wages is against the company that employed you.

Just because the company hasn't been declared officially insolvent (yet), doesn't imply they have the money to pay you.

broke=skint

Thanks for all of your replies, all advise is really appeciated and sorry for the late reply.

Judas wrote: »

How late are we talking?
It is possible if they were suddenly forced to stop trading they are having trouble gather information for final salaries and P45's etc, especially, if they arent being allow access to the premises.

I was due to be paid on the 26th May. On the 28th I called the account detailed on my wage slip and he informed me that the wages had taken a little longer than usual as he had to prepare the P45s and P60s. He also said he would be passing all figures and documents back to my employer for payment the day after.
As far as I know no employee or financial details were held on the trading premises, they were all delt with at the accountants home address.

SarEl wrote: »

You have to separate the facts here. The person who employed you may be solvent. But the issue is whether the entity (the company that employed you - and which exists as a separate "person" in law) is solvent. If the entity - the company - isn't then you cannot then claim against the person.

Separately, if you were employed by a company this year which was already insolvent, this is unlawful and should be reported - it won't het you what you are owed, and probably won't stop it from happening again. But you should do it anyway.

Ok this is a tricky one, both the person and the entity are not officially insolvant but when I tried to raise a complaint with the Employment Tribunal Service they told me that he had told them he was bankrupt.

Premier wrote: »

It's very common for a small company to use their accountant's address as their registered office.

If the accountant is a small enterprise, they may well use their home address for receiving mail (again, nothing unusual)

Who was declared bankrupt in 2009? The company which employed you (the employer), or some guy who also worked for and/or owned that company?

Your claim for overdue wages is against the company that employed you.

Just because the company hasn't been declared officially insolvent (yet), doesn't imply they have the money to pay you.

The company has been trading since 07/04/2009, a little over 12 months so should I still report this? If so who to?
I cannot find the website which told me that the person had declared himself bankrupt so going on solid evidence I have nothing to support this.

In addition to this and to complicate things a little more, I have been working for the person since 2005 in a well known "Eat Fresh" healthy sandwich franchise. Since that date he was in partnership with his sister who apparently tried to "do a runner" with their profits. When she was caught out she had the decency to pay us our owed wages, redundancy pay and holiday. After that date he took sole control under his own company name (the company that now owes me money). Things just sound a little fishy I'm sure he's trying to pull a fast one!