Do we still need our own solicitor if you handle our main contractor's insolvency?
Yes, for the legal half, which goes to your solicitor on day one with a clean file.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
That means who owns the materials, whether you can terminate, and the legal effect of the insolvency process. Insolvency Claim runs the commercial half around those questions. We check the appointment, keep the time-stamped log and take the decision to stop or carry on with you. That decision is taken on your subcontract's terms, and with your solicitor where the law limits them. We list and photograph what is yours on site. Then we build the account. Every item is sorted and rated for the evidence behind it. The account is fixed to the day and valued after anything the administrator or liquidator can deduct. We lodge your claim in the form the process asks for and negotiate the account with them. If they make a claim against you, we answer it, in adjudication if it goes there. Your solicitor advises from a file that is already in order, on an account backed by evidence line by line.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A drylining subcontractor's main contractor goes into liquidation. There are £24,000 of boards in the compound, and the subcontract has a retention of title condition and a termination clause triggered by the main contractor's insolvency.
What happens
- On day one the solicitor receives the subcontract, the dated photographs of the boards and their delivery tickets.
- The solicitor is asked two questions: whether the retention of title condition covers the boards, and whether the termination clause can be used.
- Meanwhile each item of the account is sorted and rated for its evidence, and the liquidator's cross-claims are set against it.
- The claim is lodged at the balance, in the form the liquidation asks for, and every process date goes in the diary.
The outcome
The solicitor answers the ownership and termination questions from a file that was complete on day one. The claim goes in at the balance that survives the liquidator's cross-claims, not a gross figure that would be cut back.
To have the commercial half of your main contractor's insolvency run while your solicitor takes the legal questions, see our Insolvency Claim service.