Anyone else been stung?

 

Paid 90% with installation meant to start in a few weeks time and have just found out they went into liquidation yesterday. Been to the yard and there is barely a thing there. So despite one of my payments being entitled "Materials" and another "Manufacture" they have neither got my materials nor have they manufactured anything of my house.

 

Anyone else been in a similar position? The more I speak to other trades and my architect the web of people they have let down is getting ever larger. The liquidator has informed me it'll be a week or more to get letters to all the creditors and then maybe a month or more before they know if there are any assets to liquidate.

 

Feeling more than a little disappointed and have no recourse against them. More than that I now have foundations for a house I cannot afford to build.

That's horrible, I'm sure you must be gutted.

 

Sadly I doubt you'll see much back. Their accounts look a bit odd to me, they seemed to invest £1.5m in something unspecified in their 2020 financial year, but not part of their day to day business. They also at various times have loaned a few million to directors which is an enormous amount of money relative to the assets of the company.

 

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02771581/filing-history

 

I would not be surprised if one of these things is the problem.

Did you pay any by credit card?

 

P.S, very appropriate company name, surely this was not planned from the outset?

Some interesting links with directors between this and Hullmatic (also liquidated in last 18 months)

 

Hullmatic Statement

Yep I saw that whilst browsing companies house earlier. Seems strange. I wonder what this mystery investment was and why they couldn’t have cashed that in to keep their business going.

 

Also rather annoyingly my install was meant to be 2/3 weeks ago but I pushed it back due to groundwork’s delays but there’s no point in dwelling on that.

What a shame. I really feel for you. You must be gutted.

Flight by name and by nature it would seem.

so sorry to hear this.

 

I have a Flight Timber house that was erected Sept/Oct last year. have no complaints at all. were great to deal with, good price, panels all fitted together which was nice. our carpenter has said he had no real complaints with the way it was put together either, in fact he said an MBC house he'd worked on was a lot worse for squareness/plumbness of walls etc. all in all very happy with Flight. I am shocked that they've gone in to liquidation. they were definitely (at least seemed so to me) completely legit. maybe the high material prices did them in?

 

my blog on our Flight Timber TF is here

 

 

1 hour ago, Thorfun said:

so sorry to hear this.

 

I have a Flight Timber house that was erected Sept/Oct last year. have no complaints at all. were great to deal with, good price, panels all fitted together which was nice. our carpenter has said he had no real complaints with the way it was put together either, in fact he said an MBC house he'd worked on was a lot worse for squareness/plumbness of walls etc. all in all very happy with Flight. I am shocked that they've gone in to liquidation. they were definitely (at least seemed so to me) completely legit. maybe the high material prices did them in?

 

my blog on our Flight Timber TF is here

 

 

yours was a post I read through on my research before pushing the button on Flight. I originally got a quote in Feb and accepted the quote in June and all was rosy until last week when emails went very quiet and then today finding this out. My price from Feb to requote in June went up 10% but the payment schedule reassured me that I was relatively safe as I made the material payment a while ago.

 

going to get prices for block construction and see if we can make anything of the little money we have left. I’m not expecting a penny back from them so anything would be a bonus.

I'm genuinely gutted to hear this Will. Was also considering Flight Timber during our tender and they quoted us on 11th Aug 2022. One of the more expensive quotes we had back. I hope you manage to get some form of recourse.

 

Going forward is there anyway for future self-builders to avoid this situation? Seems crazy paying for everything up front with Timber Frame, but is that the norm?

The government could regulate to require funds to be held in a separate client account until after delivery or possible even require use of a third party escrow account.

1 hour ago, Temp said:

The government could regulate to require funds to be held in a separate client account until after delivery or possible even require use of a third party escrow account.

it might be easier to ask a solicitor to hold the funds in an escrow account and perform the transactions at certain stages. but the TF company would always suggest that they have to buy the materials so need some money upfront. although I'm sure they buy materials on account with good terms. but I don't run a TF company so don't know the ins-and-outs!

Following on from this I spoke to the joinery that’s making our windows and he said they keep everyone’s deposits safeguarded for their own job but had been considering a deposit insurance scheme which would come at an extra cost to the client but would protect it in the event of this situation.

 

In some slightly positive news I have gathered quite a few willing (and skilful) volunteers for a works party over a weekend soon to get the house built in blockwork. It was mainly all timber clad so blockwork won’t cause a planning issue thankfully

taken from Flight Timber's social media feed:

 

Oh what a nightmare. This is exactly the situation I am trying to avoid as my timber kit supplier has similar terms (presumably most do) in that they’ll have 90% of the timber kit cost including windows prior to us starting. In fact a few months before we start. I am really gutted for you. 

Edited September 10, 20224 yr by Kelvin

I'm gutted for you. I have been in touch with Flight Timber about my impending project, luckily that's as far as I got with them.

 

I have a two really large clients that have gone bust just this week - I think the knock on effects of Covid and the current uncertainty / unwillingness of the public to make big purchase decisions, will start to make this happen more often.

 

This has made me think very hard about how / who I pay in future.

Will make sure you get your claim in the liquidation - I know a few people who've lost money to this company. 

Hi Will,

I support a sea cadet charity for disadvantaged young people aged 10-18 years who is building a new centre due to the decay of our existing building . Flight Timber were storing our frame - fully paid with a vesting certificate - on their site until it could be installed and it has now disappeared.

No one can tell us where it is.  We have not heard not one single word about any of this from the company or the liquidators. We are devastated the frame wasn't theirs and yet our property has gone 

1 hour ago, Gail Cramp said:

We are devastated the frame wasn't theirs and yet our property has gone

Sounds like theft - get a crime number and / or start harassing the local Police to step in and investigate - they perhaps won't but maybe worth a try?

 

According to this they only went into liquidation on or around the 20th October. That was when the board resolved to appoint liquidators.

 

https://www.checkfree.co.uk/Company/02771581/FLIGHT-TIMBER-PRODUCTS-LIMITED/Company-Details/

 

Scroll down to the pdf documents filed.