Jim Langan's furniture gone bust

Folks, I received a letter about the meeting tomorrow. Do you need to go in order to get your money back? Or does the fact that I have received a letter confirm that they know that they owe me money, and that I should expect it when a liquidator is appointed?
 
Jim Stafford of Friel Stafford was appointed liquidator on 27th April 2009. If I did not go and was a creditor, I would make sure I wrote in the Liquidator to ensure I am on the list.

Details for Friel Stafford here.



How did the meeting go, did anyone go.
 
dosent look good when you look at figures as posted on website above ( defecit of over 3m!) seems there will be nothing left for unsecured creditors, lesson learned always pay by credit card or leave with goods in hand
 
Meeting was a complete farce, totally out of control. Started 1/2 hour late, no microphone available until circa 1 hour into meeting after all hell had broken loose. Too many people talking at the same time about their own circumstances, nothing constructive came out of it i.e. where do we all go from here. You would wonder if they had planted people to deliberately disrupt the event. He is €3.4M in debt and am assuming liquidator & Stillorgan Park & the heavies that surrounded him etc will require payments on top of that.
A guy from Revenue Commissioners was in attendance and couldn't figure out how he had lost €2M in such a short space of time.
Jim himself read a statement which would be very good if a copy could be obtained to use.
His solicitor is Brendan Curran haven't yet established where he is from
 
AnnDev1 said:
Meeting was a complete farce, totally out of control. Started 1/2 hour late, no microphone available until circa 1 hour into meeting after all hell had broken loose. Too many people talking at the same time about their own circumstances, nothing constructive came out of it i.e. where do we all go from here. You would wonder if they had planted people to deliberately disrupt the event. He is €3.4M in debt and am assuming liquidator & Stillorgan Park & the heavies that surrounded him etc will require payments on top of that.
A guy from Revenue Commissioners was in attendance and couldn't figure out how he had lost €2M in such a short space of time.
Jim himself read a statement which would be very good if a copy could be obtained to use.
His solicitor is Brendan Curran haven't yet established where he is from
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Just as I expected. I have been to many of these meetings where people just talk over each other about themselves. and it is most unhelpful. Only when they are finished ranting it it possible to even think!

I would not think there were people planted, most of these meetings end up this way. Human nature.

If you look at the Liquidators statement on the website, it does not look likely that the unsecured creditors will get their funds back. Also, from the accounts, it looks like the rates for 2008 were unpaid, so cashflow seems to have been a bit tight there for a while.
 
my tuppemce worth

Looking at the figures I would surmise as follows.

1. Unsecured creditors will not receive any payment from the liquidation.

2. A case of fradulent trading could be made as the company took in over €1m in deposits which I would hazard were primarily after September 2008. From the accounts statement provided [broken link removed] , it is quite conciveable that the company knowingly took customers deposits in the knowledge that the company was insolvent. - This potentailly holds the directors personally liable for certain debts. - A solicitor would be best to advise on this.

Unfortunately this type of operation affects the many decent furniture retailers out there.
 
I have absolutely no connection with this company.

I find the attitude of Irish people to these situations pretty appalling. Yes a consumer may be down a few hundred euro but people have lost their jobs and someone has lost their business. Not paying deposits by credit card is lunacy especially given the state of the economy. And frankly the concept of attending a creditors meeting to moan about the couch I didn't receive whilst surrounded by banks, Revenue etc is a bit of a foreigner to me.
 
mcaul said:
my tuppemce worth

Looking at the figures I would surmise as follows.

1. Unsecured creditors will not receive any payment from the liquidation.

2. A case of fradulent trading could be made as the company took in over €1m in deposits which I would hazard were primarily after September 2008. From the accounts statement provided [broken link removed] , it is quite conciveable that the company knowingly took customers deposits in the knowledge that the company was insolvent. - This potentailly holds the directors personally liable for certain debts. - A solicitor would be best to advise on this.

Unfortunately this type of operation affects the many decent furniture retailers out there.
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Yes, unfortunately it does not look like any unsecured creditors will get their money back, unless the furniture is allocated to them.

The Liquidator will have to make a report to ODCE and it will probably follow on from there if there is a reckless trading angle to it. Probably be disqualified from being a director - not a big deal considering the amount of money that is in question.

These creditors meetings are always a disaster. People are angry that they have lost money (and quite rightly so) but spend hours having their say and making wild accusations that help no one. Only when they run out of steam can any order ascend on the meeting.
 
John Rambo said:
I have absolutely no connection with this company.

I find the attitude of Irish people to these situations pretty appalling. Yes a consumer may be down a few hundred euro but people have lost their jobs and someone has lost their business. Not paying deposits by credit card is lunacy especially given the state of the economy. And frankly the concept of attending a creditors meeting to moan about the couch I didn't receive whilst surrounded by banks, Revenue etc is a bit of a foreigner to me.
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I find your attitude stinks, people have lost their own jobs as well as having been done out of their deposits, some who had paid extremely large amounts of money and are out of pocket and are upset and have no way of getting it back.

I myself used a laser card to pay a deposit something I don't normally do, I was not aware that like a lot of people who have posted to this site, that you weren't covered.
I am at the loss of €500, which is something I have to accept!!

If you also read the posts from others you will see a lot of people have lost their jobs who paid deposits, they have no jobs , no sofa, no chance of getting their money back and no way of buying new furniture !!!

Show some compassion !!!
 
John Rambo said:
I have absolutely no connection with this company.

I find the attitude of Irish people to these situations pretty appalling. Yes a consumer may be down a few hundred euro but people have lost their jobs and someone has lost their business. Not paying deposits by credit card is lunacy especially given the state of the economy. And frankly the concept of attending a creditors meeting to moan about the couch I didn't receive whilst surrounded by banks, Revenue etc is a bit of a foreigner to me.
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Generally the attitude in Ireland of a firm in dificulties trying its best but failing and going out of business is very good.

In the case of Jim langan, it seems from the statements given by the liquidator that a rack of customer deposits were taken (€1m+) when it should have been quite obvious to the directors that the company had little or no chance of trading out of its financial position. Also, assuming that the deposits were taken in the 4 months prior to closing, what were the deposits used for? - Looks like they were used to pay off other debt rather than pay towards the manufacture of the furniture ordered.

Again looking at the figures, it could be construed that there was no intention that the deposits would be used against the pruchase of the orders placed by customers. - Potetially this is fraud and therefore gives the disgruntled customers of Jim Langan every reason to feel agrieved at the way this happened.

If you check my previous posts - I gave a very neutral line on this, but now that the figures have been published, its quite obvious that reckless trading has been taking place.



This will be my last post on this, as I don't have the qualifications to make further comment as it is now in an official liquidators hands and ODCE will make eventual judgement on this.
 
i think its mad after reading the liquidator notes they going to sell all the furniture to other shops not the people who paid for them it just vcant be right!!
 
If the furniture we paid deposits on was never ordered would I be right in thinking this would then be fraud? Lazor does pay out in cases of fruad so would those who paid by lazor then be covered?
 
i read on the liquidators website that any display stock that they had was being sent for public auction to wilson auctions naas road and customers were invited to come to the auction.ive emailed the company to find out when the auction is being held but no reply yet does anyone know when it is going to happen?
i think its a disgrace that if you have paid cash you will not receive your furniture and more than likely no money either yet they can go and sell off the display furniture like that.luckily i paid by cc so i got my money back and id be interested in seeing if i could get the stuff i ordered from the auction as i have not seen anything i like since.

also states on the liquidators site that only 12 pieces of furniture had been alocated to particular customers and those customers were contacted on thursday to collect it so unless you were contacted thats it!!
 
i was going mad to hear the furniture i paid for is being sold in auction that cant be right customers should be given chance to pick something out of it 1st to the value of what they paid!!!!!!we just gvot robbed blind in this country:mad:
 
babsie00 said:
also states on the liquidators site that only 12 pieces of furniture had been alocated to particular customers!!
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Pretty poor considering the amount of deposits on hand. Would love to see a full set of accounts to see where the money went. Also inviting customers to come and bid for the furniture they already have paid for is insult to injury.

However, if the furniture was not allocated to customers, it is outside of the Liquidator's power to give them to customers now or give them their value, because the aim of the Liquidator is to get as much money in as possible and the Unsecured creditors are way down the pecking order.
 
babsie00 said:
i read on the liquidators website that any display stock that they had was being sent for public auction to wilson auctions naas road and customers were invited to come to the auction.ive emailed the company to find out when the auction is being held but no reply yet does anyone know when it is going to happen?
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The liquidator has an add in today’s Business Post.

Warehouse stock will be sold by private treaty to trade buyers, min purchase €3K + vat.

Showroom stock, shop fittings and equipment will be auctioned at Wilsons Auction Rooms on Sat 30th May. Auction catalogue available shortly online at www.wilsonsauctions.com
 
if the warehouse stock is going to be sold to trade only with minimum of 3k why invite customers to go along!!!
 
John Rambo said:
I have absolutely no connection with this company.

I find the attitude of Irish people to these situations pretty appalling. Yes a consumer may be down a few hundred euro but people have lost their jobs and someone has lost their business. Not paying deposits by credit card is lunacy especially given the state of the economy. And frankly the concept of attending a creditors meeting to moan about the couch I didn't receive whilst surrounded by banks, Revenue etc is a bit of a foreigner to me.
Click to expand...

I find the above attitude appaling, myself. Some people are down several thousand euro, and are perfectly entitled to try everything they can to get their money back. For some people the money they lost could be the equivalent of a couple of months take home pay.
 
Just wondering if anyone’s been to the creditors meeting? I had to leave after a couple of hours due to other commitments. When I was there, the opinion seemed to be overwhelmingly against voting for Jim Langans chosen liquidator. I since heard that guy was voted as liquidator at that meeting. Can anyone tell me what caused the change in opinion?
 
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