Legal Aid wanted

[Guest]

There have been various references to mail order and 'going bust'. I notice many suppliers have an endorsement on all 'paper work' along the lines 'until its paid for its still ours'

Can a consumer make a similar endorsement on an order along the lines 'When the cheque is cleared the property is mine' thus avoiding the situation mentioned in earlier post where the customer was told to pay again to get his goods

 

[steve_cronin]

If a company goes into liquidation then it has debtors and creditors.

You would be a creditor in that the debt of the company to you is acknowledged but the Official Receiver jumps in effectively saying:-

"All bets off! Suspend trading immediately. Lock the doors; do not post anything out or pay any bills on pain of prosecution. The normal laws of contract are suspended. I will draw up a list of debtors to whom I will issue demands to pay but to ME. As to creditors, the priority for payouts from the assets that I intend (via my agent*) to liquidate will be as follows:-

1. The Inland Revenue and HM Customs (VAT)

2.The fees of the liquidating company* which I will appoint. (Often vast and they sell the assets at give-away prices)

3.Employees pension schemes

4. Employees unpaid salaries (never recover 100%)

5. Unpaid suppliers

6. (Bottom of the heap) - disadvantaged customers.
(YOU!)
(Much simplified as the manual is about an inch and a half thick!)

Steve Cronin

 

[tcm]

agreed. also, if you say "it's mine as soon as the cheque clears" then you disadvantage yourself with regard to things lost/bust in the post when they DON't go bust. And even if it's supposedly "yours" you'd have to go round pretty sharpish and get it, not easy esp with distant shed where all empoyees have gone home cos they won't get paid...

 

[mtb]

Re: Credit card

A credit card would be the best way around it ,because most have insurance to cover these problems.
The only answer is to collect and pay there and then .
Mick

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/boats
I want a big steel ex trawler / tug v/cheep or swap for tug

 

[iangrant]

Steve - you are so right - Funny how it's legal that the liquidating company's fees seem to equate to how much is left before the last in the que get anything??!!

Ian

 

[ParaHandy]

M'learned friend, pension schemes are in the Trust of the Trustees & well out of the Receivers mitts. Members of that Schemes' last monthly contributions are not and might not have been paid - any more than a month in arrears and that should send warning bells ringing.

All thanks to a fat Czech (Maxwell) who fell off his yacht after alegedly skinning £250m from Mirror pension scheme. But then, he was playing with pocket money compared with Enron.

 

[steve_cronin]

The real tragedy....

... is seeing people who have put their life's work into a business at an insolvency sale watching their assets going for rubbish prices.

In the above case however, their might be little sympathy for the bankrupted chandler but by selling cheap, liquidators aren't doing much for the bottom rank creditors either, when, say, a computer sytem that might be sold through a newspaper advertisement for £600 goes for £80 or a stock of brand new £65 desk-top calculators is sold at £5 each! This sort of thing happens regularly.

Most people see estate agents as weaseley little creeps (MOSTLY unjustified imho) but you should equate Liquidators (again imho) with the Kray brothers.

Steve Cronin

 

[steve_cronin]

I was of course...

... referring to pending employers contributions. Sorry for the slip.

Steve Cronin

 

[ParaHandy]

Re: I was of course...

Steve..no apology needed. We seem to be of one mind about the subject.

 

[Guest]

Well, there's just a chance it could work. Yes, you can vary the company's standard terms in the way that you have described. Companies often try doing that to each other to make sure that their own standard terms apply rather than the other company's: "the battle of the forms".

It is also possible to provide in a contract that property passes at some other time than on delivery, so you're OK from that point of view too. If title to the goods has passed, then the goods don't fall under the assets of the company and don't fall in the list of assets described by Steven Cronin below, so that the order of priority would be irrelevant so far as the goods are concerned. If it's already yours, then it's already yours.

But in practice it might not work very often because:

example: you've ordered the goods, the suppliers gets hold of them from another supplier. The latter includes a retention of title clause in his standard terms until he is paid. The effect is that the goods still belong to him, the bankrupt company never got title to the goods (only to your money) and therefore can't have passed title to you (because it never had title itself).

Another more serious problem is that the particular goods in which title was supposed to pass to you probably aren't identified as such in the warehouse. I haven't researched this point, but I should think that this means that in fact legal title won't have passed. The company will be in breach of its contract with you, but so what.

In the lucky event however that the goods have been set aside and marked with your name on, then I should think that, yes your proposal ought to work (provided nobody removes the label without ever telling anyone about it, in which case you're stuffed).

The other way out, as mentioned in another posting, is to pay by credit card. It is interesting however that much of such "insurance" is simply your rights under the Consumer Credit Act dressed up by the credit card companies to make it look like a benefit that they are providing voluntarily!

 

[Guest]

p.s.

Another situation is where the goods are made to order. In that case, ownership of them can't pass to you until they're made into the final product anyway. If you were being really persistent, you might try specifying that the work in progress belongs to you while it was being worked on. That might do the trick, but wouldn't help if (as is likely) the suppliers of the materials being used to make the finished product had a "retention of title" clause in their terms of supply (ie. they say they own the materials until they're paid).

 

[Guest]

Re: p.s.

receipt of your cheque is not performance of your side of the contract, so it may have to be receipt by them of the cleared funds. then, in theory, it probably could work. in practise, it is unlikely. number of reasons
1/ unless the item is clearly identified, the receiver will ask you to prove which is the one you paid for
2/ with a company in trouble, the goods may well not exist anyway. if they do, has ownership passed to the store in the first place, or do they still belong to his supplier
3/ receivers are appointed usually by the bank, and get their next job from that bank, not you. in real life you will have to be able to prove everything 100% and even then will meet resistence. you have no bargaining power.

The answer is to pay for everything by credit card (not debit card) or by cash if you can walk away with the goods. never be a creditor.

 

[Guest]

Re: p.s.

Actually there's nothing to stop you specifying either receipt of the cheque or clearance of funds as the moment for title to transfer. Title can transfer at whatever moment is agreed, whether or not you've performed your part of the contract. Other possibilities would be eg.: receipt of order confirmation from them, or their taking steps to cash the cheque. The earliest moment you could specify title to transfer would be the moment they take action implying that they have accepted your order (ie. the moment the contract is concluded).

The important thing is that they must have taken some action that can be construed as accepting your terms, such as informing you that your order has been accepted.

Otherwise, I agree with your points!