Consumer advice - please

Tea_biscuits

We purchased a set of showroom display grey bi-fold doors with integrated blinds on 6th April 2022 for £5000.00, I have a receipt.

We were due to have an extension started 6-8 weeks later by the company my husband worked for, the drawings were complete etc but unfortunately on 29th April 2022 my husband was made redundant on the spot and the business closed down with immediate effect.  

We advised the company of our circumstances and they agreed to hold on to the doors advising there was no rush. 

We concluded that we were not in a position to proceed with the extension and would not be requiring the doors, we asked around family and friends if they knew of anyone who might want to buy them and asked the company if they would also advertise them for sale from their unit which was agreed, they even advised they may buy them back from us and on other occasions advised they had a builder who may be interested. This went on for a good few months.

We decided we’d just arrange to collect the doors, put them in storage and advertise them ourselves. We couldn't reach the owner by phone so visited the showroom and were surprised to see a new company now occupied the showroom. We were advised by the site where the showroom is located that they owed them rent, they were in breach of his contract to make the unit good, they'd been evicted, and they were not their doors to have sold us. They couldn’t help more than this. 

.I called Julian and was told that Steve had been evicted for non-payment of rent, they didn’t know who the doors belong to (I have a receipt as proof of purchase!) or whether Steve was in the right to sell them, he didn’t really have much else to add.  

They company have since been in touch telling me they are my doors, they put them in to the showroom and that the original doors are in a container on-site.

I have revisited the site asking about obtaining my doors but they tell me the doors now belong to them as anything left by the company they inherit as part of the money owed. I struggle to see how the doors I have proof of owner ship for, now belong to garden centre. 

A First Gazette notice for compulsory strike off is currently being processed on Companies House so he’s soon to be struck off their register!! 

Any help or advice you can give me would much appreciated as I am at a loss of what to do next. 

 

DullGreyGuy

Your contract is with the seller and it is them that you need to try and pursue for either the goods or the monies. On what grounds is the strike off in the Gazette?

Tea_biscuits

I assume it's because the confirmation statement is overdue. 

The seller is not allowed on site to change the doors back to the originals and has no money to seek legal advice against the site. 

Okell

Surely if the OP has a receipt proving(?) purchase of the doors from the shop/tenant, then the landlord has no legal right to retain them regardless of what the shop/tenant owes the landlord.  They belong to the OP, not the shop/tenant.

Wouldn't the OP have a cause of action against the landlord for "wrongful interference with goods" under the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 (legislation.gov.uk)?

(I doubt the contractual relationship between the OP and the shop/tenant is now worth anything.  The OP needs to enforce their legal rights against the landlord.  If the shop/tenant owes the landlord money, that's the landlord's problem, not the OP's)

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

Your contract is with the seller and it is them that you need to try and pursue for either the goods or the monies. On what grounds is the strike off in the Gazette?

Is that true in this case?

If title has legitimately passed to the OP then the current occupiers of the showroom, or more specifically the container, have become involuntary bailees of the goods and have a duty to restore them to the OP.

They can't simply lay claim to someone else's property because they have a debt with another.

OP do you have anything to prove the doors are under someone else's control. i.e when you say they are in a container do you have that in writing or on a recorded conversation? If not I'd start by getting that as your proof* and then go after the occupiers for failing in their duties as an involuntary bailee. 

*You want this proof so they don't later down the line claim they were mistaken and the doors weren't in the container.

For a sum of £5000 you might want to seek professional advice  

Tea_biscuits

My doors are still the set on the showroom that the tenant put it at some point, the original doors I am told are in a container on site and the landlord is saying the tenant should have put these back in as part of his contract to make good on exit, however he was evicted and has no opportunity to do so.  

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Tea_biscuits said:

My doors are still the set on the showroom that the tenant put it at some point, the original doors I am told are in a container on site and the landlord is saying the tenant should have put these back in as part of his contract to make good on exit, however he was evicted and has no opportunity to do so.  

Thanks OP. Do you have proof those doors installed in/on the showroom are yours OP?

I still don't think it makes any difference, if it can be show that the doors are yours*, then they are yours, the current occupiers can't keep them because the previous occupier has breached a completely separate contract.

*The only thing this depends on is whether the guy who sold them to you had the title to the goods, if he did then he passed that title to you. If he didn't (i.e was selling doors that belonged to someone else) then the doors don't belong to you. 

tightauldgit

Yes I think the new place is misleading you. While they may have a claim to any of the old tenant's property left at the site I can't see that they have any claim over someone else's property left at the site. Provided you can demonstrate legal ownership of the doors (which they seem to have admitted) then the doors remain yours. 

The resolution to this should be that the new tenants make the doors available to you (you will probably have to arrange collection and delivery to wherever you store them) if not then I think you should write a letter pointing out that they have possession of your doors and you will be taking court action to recover them should they not make them available to you.

The only possible complication I can see is that if the doors were never delivered to you then I'm not sure if the contract has completed and you have actually taken legal ownership of them. In which case you'd have to pursue the person you had a contract with for breach of contract potentially. 

However it seems the new tenant has acknowledged your ownership of the doors so that should make it reasonably straightforward from my view.

Tea_biscuits

tightauldgit said:

Yes I think the new place is misleading you. While they may have a claim to any of the old tenant's property left at the site I can't see that they have any claim over someone else's property left at the site. Provided you can demonstrate legal ownership of the doors (which they seem to have admitted) then the doors remain yours. 

The resolution to this should be that the new tenants make the doors available to you (you will probably have to arrange collection and delivery to wherever you store them) if not then I think you should write a letter pointing out that they have possession of your doors and you will be taking court action to recover them should they not make them available to you.

The only possible complication I can see is that if the doors were never delivered to you then I'm not sure if the contract has completed and you have actually taken legal ownership of them. In which case you'd have to pursue the person you had a contract with for breach of contract potentially. 

However it seems the new tenant has acknowledged your ownership of the doors so that should make it reasonably straightforward from my view.

The new occupier of the unit just keeps sending me to the Landlord as she is only renting the unit from them. I am not sure it would be up to the new tenant would it? The doors are still in situ as the unit doors and I am prepared to send in people to remove them and collect them but am told by the landlord they belong to them. 

Tea_biscuits

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Tea_biscuits said:

My doors are still the set on the showroom that the tenant put it at some point, the original doors I am told are in a container on site and the landlord is saying the tenant should have put these back in as part of his contract to make good on exit, however he was evicted and has no opportunity to do so.  

Thanks OP. Do you have proof those doors installed in/on the showroom are yours OP?

I still don't think it makes any difference, if it can be show that the doors are yours*, then they are yours, the current occupiers can't keep them because the previous occupier has breached a completely separate contract.

*The only thing this depends on is whether the guy who sold them to you had the title to the goods, if he did then he passed that title to you. If he didn't (i.e was selling doors that belonged to someone else) then the doors don't belong to you. 

I have a receipt for £5000 showing I purchased the display set of doors. 

sheramber

Are you saying the seller took out the orignal showroon doors and replqced them with yours. He put the orignal showroom doors in the container.

So, the doors you paid for are still in situ in the showroom?

Do you have legal cover on your house insurance?