Has charity lost their £1,400 deposit?

JBEAN

Hi - firstly, I hope Im posting in the right place!

Im posting on behalf of a small animal charity I volunteer for. We have recently paid a hard earned amount of £1,400 (deposit on a larger order) to a company who as far as I can tell are not a limited company.

The amount was paid by cheque in February, and has cleared.

They have now contacted us to say they cant fulfill our order due to financial pressure and apparently the business has closed down.

Do we have recourse at all? or do we have to accept that we have lost this money?

Any advice appreciated. Many thanks

bris

Yes, you can recover it through the small claims court for breach of contract, consequential losses and court costs can also be claimed.
If they are ltd then this may prove fruitless if they are in administration or dissolved with no assets.

If they are sole trader or partnership the you can chase them personally and have more chance of success. Many millions of CCJ's have gone unpaid so there is no guarantee that you will be paid, but for the relatively small amount of court costs to the reward of getting 1400 quid back may be worth the gamble.

vaio

as it's not a limited company then the business owner is personally liable (including any and all assets he owns, car, house etc etc) for company debts.

The tricky bit is identifying what assets he owns and even if you manage that you will only get a share proportional to your share of his total debts. Sadly, sometimes pursuing this sort of thing is a recipe for throwing good money after bad (assuming he really has gone bust rather than just run away with your money)

pinkshoes

Here's some good information:

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/shropshire/con1item.cgi?file=*ADV0005-1011.txt

JBEAN

Thank you all for your advice

arcon5

As a sole trader there is no proportionality when paying debts, they may offer full and final setenent offers, but these don't have to be accepted. Only problem is, as said, you can't get blood from a stone! Or of course if the sole trader petitions for bankruptcy then your screwed.

paddyrg

The first one to sue will get first bite of the cherry - get in there sharpish and get the CCJ and subsequent attachment of earnings or lein on any property you can get. Those shy in coming forwards will get ignored in favour of the shouters, so get in pronto. Remember you are acting on behalf of all those who donated to the charity, your moral position is pretty clear