Judgment for dissolved company

[Will11]

Hi
Long story short - I employed a builder, he failed to complete the work and the work that was completed was very poor, he ignored all communication attempts to resolve the situation, a county court claim was submitted - he did not respond, a judgment was ordered - he has not responded.

I have discovered that his company was dissolved 2 years prior to my dealings, clearly still trading.
I have been told that I cannot enforce the judgment to a dissolved company.

I can't afford legal help and I haven't managed find anyone offering any free advice.
I really need some help with ways around this.

 

[The Byre]

Obviously, he was trading as a sole trader and therefore you need to start the whole small claims malarkey all over again, only this time against his person. Trading as a dissolved company and naming that company with VAT number and company number (if that is what happened) is an offense.

N.B. Always check every company you deal with. There are dozens of websites that do this for you for free and for a very small fee, you can even check their credit.

 

[WaveJumper]

Hi and welcome to the UKBF sorry to hear of the issues you are having. I think one of the first questions you are going to be asked is, who was your contract with ie was it with a Ltd company or was the builder working as self-employed whilst carrying out your building work.

 

[Will11]

The documentation I have from him uses the Ltd company name, company number and VAT number.

 

[Lisa Thomas]

It sounds as if the company you contracted with was subsequently dissolved so your judgement is unfortunately now worthless, unless you pay to reinstate the company, then pay to Liquidate it and hope there will be recoveries leaving a surplus after costs with which to pay a dividend to the unsecured creditors.

I suspect the business was started again in a separate entity after the company was dissolved.

 

[John Hemming]

I have a bit of a habit when I am dealing in any way with a limited company just to google them on companies house. It provides useful information most of the time. It only costs the typing effort and cost of electricity to do the search.

 

[WaveJumper]

It sounds as if the company you contracted with was subsequently dissolved so your judgement is unfortunately now worthless, unless you pay to reinstate the company, then pay to Liquidate it and hope there will be recoveries leaving a surplus after costs with which to pay a dividend to the unsecured creditors.

I suspect the business was started again in a separate entity after the company was dissolved.

Lisa (good afternoon) out of interest if a director knowingly trades and enters into contracts when he knows the company is dissolved would he in law become personally liable

 

[Newchodge]

Lisa (good afternoon) out of interest if a director knowingly trades and enters into contracts when he knows the company is dissolved would he in law become personally liable

If the company is dissolved there is no director. I would have thought that anyone pruporting to trade under the name of a dissolved company would be committing fraud and be personally liable.

 

[WaveJumper]

If the company is dissolved there is no director. I would have thought that anyone pruporting to trade under the name of a dissolved company would be committing fraud and be personally liable.

Fraud sounds about right in this instance not a good outcome for the OP

 

[Michael Loveridge]

Hi
Long story short - I employed a builder, he failed to complete the work and the work that was completed was very poor, he ignored all communication attempts to resolve the situation, a county court claim was submitted - he did not respond, a judgment was ordered - he has not responded.

I have discovered that his company was dissolved 2 years prior to my dealings, clearly still trading.
I have been told that I cannot enforce the judgment to a dissolved company.

Are you saying that the company was dissolved before you started dealing with him?

If so, your contract must, by definition, have been with him personally, so you would need to commence a fresh action against him as an individual.

 

[Lisa Thomas]

Lisa (good afternoon) out of interest if a director knowingly trades and enters into contracts when he knows the company is dissolved would he in law become personally liable

What entity is the ex director trading as - I assume it is a new entity or sole tradership? If so, there is nothing to stop the ex director doing that, unless disqualified or bankrupted.

 

[IanSuth]

Be good to get clarification from the OP but I read it as the building company had been dissolved 2 years before the shoddy work took place but OP was not aware of that and all contract / paperwork was in the name of the actually dissolved company, so when they got a CCJ it is also against a non existent company and hence worthless and they want to know what to do now.

 

[WaveJumper]

Yep be interesting if it was trading as insolvent rather than fully dissolved as guessing that could put a whole new slant on things. I was assuming for all probably the wrong reasons OP was talking about a LTD but realise this may well not be the case at all

 

[Michael Loveridge]

Be good to get clarification from the OP ...

Yes, it's always rather frustrating when someone raises a question, gets lots of help and then just disappears.

 

[WaveJumper]

Yes, it's always rather frustrating when someone raises a question, gets lots of help and then just disappears.

Absolutely

 

[smallclaimsassistance]

He says quite clearly that the company was dissolved before his dealings, so contractually speaking, the work was done by the sole trader, regardless of the misrepresentation concerning the legal entity carrying out the work.

Good advice above on what to do and who to approach, but the only thing missing is whether to litigate. Prospects of recovery depend on numerous factors, but one point which is often overlooked, is whether the defendant is worth pursuing. On the very limited information here, a tradesman who is either fraudulently trading as a dissolved company, or at best, so incompetent that he uses obsolete stationery without appreciating the consequences, and who fails to engage even when litigation begins, whether it’s worth pursuing, and what chance there is of recovering anything even if successful, is worth serious consideration.

One final point, which serves as a caveat to the above. Did HE even know about the claim? In other words, were the company address and his the same? If not, it’s possible he has no idea about the claim or the judgement.

Dean

 

[John Hemming]

I am with Dean on all of this. Over the years I have done quite a bit of work as a lay legal advisor mainly in the appellate courts (with some success) more recently I have had to get involved in quite a bit of litigation. I have also acted as an expert witness in legal cases (from a tech basis).

In the end the tactics of the litigation often drive it.

It is not, however, only about tactics.

Last week I won a case in the UN which you can see here:
https://unece.org/env/pp/cc/accc.c.2016.142_united-kingdom

That is really all about principles and not tactics.

 

[Michael Gerard]

Some good advice here.

What the OP needs to set out is when the contract with the builder was entered into and who the contracting party is. If the contracting party is with a limited company, then the status of that limited company needs to be found out and as John Hemming has very helpfully pointed out, this information can be found on Companies House.

If the limited company ceased trading before the contract was entered into, then the OP needs to identify who he has contracted with. Once the contracting party has been identified, only then can the OP decide on the next stage.

 

[WaveJumper]

My understanding of this is:

OP had some building works done not to his satisfaction, so he took out a county court judgement against the builder and subsequently found out that the ltd company was dissolved 2 years before he had any dealings with him.

The question was raised did he think he was dealing with a ltd company I believe our OP said yes and all paperwork was related to the ltd company.

And I believe this is where the OP’s problem lies

 

[Lisa Thomas]

Sounds like OP needs to get the CCJ amended into the builders personal name perhaps?

 

[smallclaimsassistance]

Sounds like OP needs to get the CCJ amended into the builders personal name perhaps?

You can't do that.

The only way to undo the County Court Judgement, is to apply to have the judgement set aside, and provided that's successful, which, in the reported circumstances, it should be, then apply to amend the proceedings to substitute the defendant. Those proceedings are then served upon the correct defendant and in default of a Defence, they can apply for judgement again.

To save fees, you could possibly do all of this in one application, but the second application (amending the name) is contingent uppon the success of the first (setting aside the default judgement). This is also messy, for a non lawyer, because the pleadings all need to be altered to reflect the amended identity, and involvement in the action, of the legal entity sued.

It's probably less trouble and marginally less money in fees to start again, which takes me back to the point I made above. Before any of this is undertaken, it's always necessary in cases like this to consider not only liability and quantum, but also whether the defendant (the correct defendant) can pay.

Otherwise it's good money after bad.

Dean