Company in liquidation - unpaid wages
 

My wife's company has been put into receivership today and they have all been told to go home and they will not be paid this month's wages. I found the info below, but anyone know any more details about how much to expect?

"Q My employer has gone 'bust': how can I claim my pay owed to me?
Where an employer becomes insolvent owing debts to employees there is a special scheme to compensate these workers. This is known as the 'Insolvency Provisions' of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Under Section 184 of the Act the Department of Employment Redundancy Payments Section will pay to such workers the following debts:

• Any arrears of pay up to eight weeks.
• Any statutory notice pay.
• Up to six weeks' holiday pay.
• Any basic award of compensation for unfair dismissal from an employment tribunal.
• Reimbursement of fee or premium paid by an apprentice or articled clerk.
• Repayment of contributions to occupational pension scheme collected from employee's pay but not paid into pension scheme by employer - Section 124 Pension Schemes Act 1993.
• Redundancy payments - Section 166 ERA 1996.

Contact must be made with the local Department of Employment Redundancy Payments Section for the appropriate forms. If a claim is refused by the Department of Employment, an appeal may be presented to an employment tribunal, normally within three months of the refusal."

Sounds about right to me although I am no expert and have never had to do it before I have always believed you could claim some money if not all back from the government.

John that tells you exactly what she will get
No more no less

I have half expected it the way the economy is going, manufacturing in Fife is hardly a secure job, but they are skilled and well paid jobs usually which will really hurt the local economy. I always wondered if she would keep her job even if we got the house price crash we wished for. I feel very sorry for the breadwinners, as it is my public sector job will keep us going. She would like another private sector job, but it is all snout in the trough public sector nappy coordinators around here. There was a job as a planner for a council's centenary celebrations. What a waste of money for the taxpayers. What a drag on corporation taxes. Rant over.

John

PM me if you need any more info - this is what I do for a living.

ps - what the info you've posted doesn't say is the maximum amount the state will pay is capped at £330 per week.

Also, depending on the numbers of people involved, there can be ways to increase the payout by way of a protective award.

what company is it?

5t.

Curtis Fine Papers, Guardbridge.

Thanks Devildog, she did mention £330 a week. Would this also apply to the notice period and untaken holiday up to 6 weeks?

Yes - covers everything.

She will still have a residual claim against the company for everything over and above that £330, and any contractual entitlements over and above the statutory ones - usually notice.

The wages and holiday pay element of that residual claim have a preferential ranking, that is to say they are payable from assets realised before all other creditors (except those with standard securities on heritage) but after costs and expenses.

Who is handling it (Firm, IP)?

Thanks, I'll get more details re firm/IP.

Are insolvency practitioners accountants and/or lawyers?

She has a first class honours chemistry/medicinal chemistry, Master of Business administration, experience in sales, manufacturing, product development. Lots of things she could do in a better economic environment.

Mostly accountants. The occasional practicing lawyer will hold an insolvency licence, but they tend to do personal insolvency cases only.

She sounds well qualified John - hopefully she will find something better.

Hi John

Sorry to hear that :)

Looking at my PCT figures for last year the "average" GMP in my area made £55k a year more than me....I Think your "public sector job" just might keep you going LOL

Shaun

John, DD has already posted all the facts, but having been through this a few years back I think that her indoors will be feeling fairly crap now. Make sure she knows that it isn't her fault. Until it happens, you can't comprehend how bad the feeling of rejection is. It isn't easy to brush aside either. I ended up earning twice as much for half as much effort, but 6 years down the line i would still like to kick the living sh1t out of the MD for allowing it to happen.

This happend to me a few years ago it's not really worth the hastle. I had to go to some sort of court place and ended getting a few hundred quid.
Bad news about the paper mill had a few friends work with them since leaving School.

Devildog, it is KPMG.

Thanks Midlife (your PCT prob does much better than ours, but yes we are not broke, some people that worked there will be though as they have a mortgage to pay in days and no pay this month). Thanks also Jer.

Thanks fastbloke she was/is very upset, it is all so sudden as well since the finances were opaque. When we look out of the window the paper mill is on the horizon and represents a proud industrial heritage that supported people's hopes and dreams since the Victorian era, the whole community was built around it. Great machines were built that produced huge profits back in the day, yet now it can't be made to work and the machines are too costly to maintain. Somehow it supported many fairly well paid manufacturing jobs for a long time and it encouraged me to see it running rather than lots of low paid service sector jobs. I don't know where any private sector wealth will come from in Fife the way things are going. The reality is it is coming from elsewhere in the UK I suspect, but it doesn't seem sustainable to me.

Look on the bright side JB, won't the property prices there drop now that there is no major employer and people can't pay mortgages? I thought it was this very type of recession that you were anticipating and hoping to profit from?

Don't think so it's only a few miles from St Andrews and right next door to the air base.

Prices do seem to be dropping though, although St Andrews is desirable the market is still flooded. We are advertising two jobs for receptionists from £12-15k, and there are a number of applicants with honours degrees, qualified nurses, and estate agency staff applying. I was astonished at the number of applicants compared to a few years ago and how grossly overqualified some of them are. I think there is a lot of stress in the labour market.

From a numerical point of view it would be better for us personally to have one redundancy and a big adjustment in house prices. It isn't pleasant going through it though even though we have it easier than most because finances aren't stretched.

What I would have preferred more than anything is not to have had rampant increases in money supply feeding through to house price inflation and now commodities/energy leading to industry collapsing. Clearly no one has so far managed to really tame boom-bust.

My wife took voluntary redundancy from the job before last a few years ago. That actually provided a nice step up and a little package. I'm not so optimistic this time will provide either though.