Rights if a company goes bust

[Georgie]

We were planning to fit some porte fenetres and placed an order with a company, paying a deposit of 1500 euros.   After 6 months of excuses and delays the company agreed to allow us to cancel the order and return our deposit on receipt of a Lettre a Recommande, which we duly sent.    The letter was returned to us 2 weeks later, undelivered.    A french friend has been trying to contact him, but to no avail.   We are obviously concerned that the company may have gone out of business.   Has anybody had any similar experiences and if so, is there any advice they can offer.

[Val_2]

Personally I would be inclined to go visit the supplier and see for myself and then take action. If they have gone under then it may be impossible to get any refund depending on the amount owed to creditors and where you are in the line for a payout. If you see an avocat that will also cost you going into thousands of euros to get redress otherwise all you can do is hire a Huissier which is a bit cheaper to find out for you and lodge a claim.

[Georgie]

Thanks for that.  Haven't heard of Huissier before, but will look into this.   As I write our French friend tells us that he managed to speak to the business owner, who seemed very contrite and said he didn't know why he didn't get the Lettre a Recommande and has asked us to resend.   We are still suspicious because of the delaying tactics he has used in the past, but must try to remain positive.    A complication to the matter is the fact that we are in the States visiting our daughter for an extended break of 2 months.   The guy knew this and I think he thought we would not find out about the letter being returned until we got back to France.   Watch this space . . . . .

[sunshine 2]

Letters sent 'a recommande' are only held at the PO in France for 2 weeks - so if an attempt to deliver it to the address was not successful then a card would be left asking for someone to visit the PO to collect it.  If they do not then go to the PO for 2 weeks then the letter is returned to sender - so it's really quite easy to end up having a letter returned. 

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="sunshine 2"]Letters sent 'a recommande' are only held at the PO in France for 2 weeks - so if an attempt to deliver it to the address was not successful then a card would be left asking for someone to visit the PO to collect it.  If they do not then go to the PO for 2 weeks then the letter is returned to sender - so it's really quite easy to end up having a letter returned. [/quote]

BUT, a court (or Hussier) would regard the letter as delivered and the contents read - even if it is obvious that they have not been. Strange, but true....

 

[Georgie]

Thanks for all the helpful comments.   Our lettre a recommande has now been resent, and we will just have to keep fingers crossed for the time being.

[Iceni]

FWIW

We had occasion to sue someone in France a year or two back. Our recorded delivery letter was returned by La Poste, uncollected by the intended recipient (I am not suggesting for a moment that he declined to pick it up when he discovered who had sent it). Our avocat made much of this further down the line and it seemed to aid our cause.

Eventually we won but a sort of financial Pyrrhic victory.

John