Kitchen company gone bust - do I still owe them?

spursfan323

We ordered our kitchen a year ago - payment in 3 stages (before, at delivery, and approx 10% 2 weeks after). We paid the first 2, kitchen delivered and fitted, but they never asked for the 3rd payment, so its been unpaid for about a year!

About 5 weeks ago I got an email from them saying there is an outstanding balance to settle of £1700. The figure was wrong, so (unwisely) I replied that ''it seems we owe you £895 plus Vat'' which they confirmed in a 2nd email, but again, they have not followed it up since.

I then realised the 2nd email is from a company with a different name to the one I placed the order with.
I did a quick check on Companies House and it seems 1st company is in liquidation.

1. Legally speaking, do I owe them anything now they're liquidated?
2. Does my email ''it seems we owe you'' affect the answer to 1.?

Thanks for all your help.

richardw

Have you had an invoice from them?

Bean_Counter

Personally I would be suspicious. Unfortunately we have had several client and suppliers go bust on us in recent times. In every instance it has been the administrators who have been in touch, either to request a payment or ask us to make a statement of how much we owe.

In every instance they have been in touch by letter and never e-mail. I would take steps to confirm that the people requesting money are those that you legally owe the money (if any) to.

spursfan323

No invoice, just the email correspondence

spursfan323

Bean_Counter wrote: »

Personally I would be suspicious. Unfortunately we have had several client and suppliers go bust on us in recent times. In every instance it has been the administrators who have been in touch, either to request a payment or ask us to make a statement of how much we owe.

In every instance they have been in touch by letter and never e-mail. I would take steps to confirm that the people requesting money are those that you legally owe the money (if any) to.

I'm not suspicious - email is from the designer we dealt with... I recognise his poor English.

I just want to know the legal position!

heating_novice

I think if you owe money to a company that goes bust you will still owe the money to the company's creditors usually represented by an insolvency practitioner.

ryder72

you absolutely owe the money but to the liquidators. They should contact you through formal channels.

grizzly1911

kmdesign wrote: »

you absolutely owe the money but to the liquidators. They should contact you through formal channels.

+1 unless you have some form of counter claim, which if justified, you may niot be pursued for.

Bean_Counter

If you want to PM me the name of the company I can do some checking for you in the morning to find out its status.

The_Pedant

The big question is whether anything has happened to the company since they started a winding up. It is possible they could have been sold on etc but this should be confirmed with the administrators.

As an example, if say the designer was instead trying to recover money they were owed by the kitchen supplier directly with yourselves then this could cause issues. The outstanding balance is with your kitchen supplier or with their administrators. If you paid one of their creditors directly (the designer?) then the administrators have no record or interest in this & could still come after yourselves for the outstanding balance for them to split between the registered creditors.

Therefore do nothing until you have confirmed what has happened to the company & who actually has the responsibility for seeking payment.

phill99

Pedant is correct. You legally still owe the money (this poor admin maybe why they went into liquidation). However, its only payable to the administrators / receivers who will contact you formally (ie in writing) and not via email. Ignore any emails you get about this.