by Nazma Noor on February 23rd, 2011
The Insolvency Service has recently issued a warning to couples planning their weddings this year – ensure that wedding suppliers are financially stable.
Weddings can be costly and if you’re on a tight budget the last thing you need is one of your wedding suppliers disappearing with your deposit.
A recent example of this happening is Anouska Antonia Semp, the 35 year-old former director of Avorio, a Sheffield-based bridalwear retail company. On 25 January 2011, she was declared bankrupt at Barnsley County Court.
Similarly, another bridal wear shop in Peterborough, Perfections, had one of their business partners file for bankruptcy this year. The landlord of the premises they rented sealed the doors and withheld stock in lieu of outstanding rent payments. As part of the initial investigation by the local Official Receiver(the government officer responsible for investigating financial failure) it was found that the shop had taken more than 80 deposits of around £300 each on wedding dresses. The brides, being unsecured creditors, are now unlikely to receive the wedding dresses they ordered.
It’s not just bridalwear shops you need to be wary of, in August 2010 Peter Gelardi and Pepita Diamand, directors of Wrapit PLC, a failed wedding gift company, were disqualified from acting as company directors for a total of 15 years when an Insolvency Service investigation found they had continued to take payments from customers of at least £872,000 when they knew the company was insolvent. Wrapit’s accounts showed the company had never made a profit and when it collapsed in 2008 there were 72,000 undelivered wedding gifts for which the company owed over £4 million.
The Insolvency Service has advised anybody planning their wedding this year to make a few simple checks before paying deposits or entering into a contract with a wedding supplier or venue. Below are the checks and how you can make them:
You can check if a director is subject to a bankruptcy order or has been disqualified from the world of business, on the Insolvency Servuce website database here: Disqualified Directors Search.
Again, this can be checked online for free and more detailed information can be accessed at a charge of £1. You can check for this information on the Companies House website.
If you’re looking for some tips for planning a budget wedding, see the blog we wrote about this last year: Weddings and debt, two things that always go hand in hand? and if you’re in an IVA and want to find out how getting married will affect your arrangement, read our blog about this here: Marriage, Divorce and Debts.
Do you have any tips for planning a wedding, whether they be about how to save or how to protect yourself from financially unstable suppliers? Leave a comment below and share your views now!
By Nazma Noor and is filed under Managing Your Money.Tagged with: debt, insolvency, shopping, weddings.
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