Advice on getting unpaid wages paid ... legal stuff please

Do you know where he lives? Can the two of you turn up on his doorstep and be a bit insistent? Probably the best chance of a quick outcome, especially if he's leaving the country. 

Employer then 'sold' the business as an on-going concern mid Dec (no communication, only found out via the guy who owns the premises), and became difficult to contact, and shared no info with son.

the business employed your son   - and the guy has sold it now owns the business - so is the new owner not in fact liable for the business's outgoings?

(or am I misreading it - you mention communication with the 'owner' - is that the new owner or the original owner?)

Son worked the full month of Dec, we think new owner took over early Jan (and has also got some negative collateral to deal with from previous owner).
Original boss has explicitly stated he owes son wages.
He's now deleted his email account and we don't have a home address.

Gonna be difficult.  See if the new owner has contact details for the old one or will help.  I am not at all sure but its probably not the new owners responsibility.  depends how the transfer was done

Son worked the full month of Dec, we think new owner took over early Jan (and has also got some negative collateral to deal with from previous owner)

If he has then its as likely as not your sons wages are part of that. Its quite possible the new owner hasn't done enough homework to insulate themselves from any liabilities so he may well have acquired the responsibility whether he realises or not

Put it this way the new owner is someone you can contact and the old owner seemingly isn't. If you pursue the new owner then they've got to at least prove that he hasn't taken on that responsibly - and he'll also become just as motivated as you are to find the original owner too

What was the old business, a limited company or a sole trader?

If it was a limited company then the liability lies with the business, as it is an entity in itself, and the new owner is responsible for sorting that out. If it was a sole trader (and by sold the business you mean sold the premises/stock/rights to the name/whatever) then the old owner is personally responsible as they are (were) the business.

IANAL

My wife wasn't paid a month's wages. After chasing her boss and going nowhere she went to small claims and won.

Then found out she had to get bailiffs to actually get the money back..

Bit of a pause, nothing happened untill she bumped into the boss in a restaurant dining with a lady. She had a massive go at him and chucked his glass of wine over him. Got paid the next week.

This was 25 years ago. I'd be asking citizens advice about what happens if your son won a small claims court case. 

It depends how the business was structured, but even if it was a Ltd company your son's at the bottom of the list of creditors - It seems obvious to say, but I doubt your son is the only person the previous owner owes money to. 

You could try CAB, but lawyers are going to want a cut, and TBH what your son's probably owed, they're not going to be interested.  

Almost the same thing happened to my son this time last year except the business was a pub and he had actually received a couple of pay slips which made life easier.

Firstly have a look at Companies House and try and track the company down. Be ready to look for all sorts of variations of the business name to track them down. Have a look at the bank transfers your son received to see if they can help.

If that does not work, try googling the owners name in quote marks to see if you can find the owner anywhere else such as Linkedin that might give you some clues.

If you do manage to trace the owners details, get in touch with ACAS and formally register the issue. If you managed to find more than one interested party (such as multiple directors listed on Companies House) name everyone on your ACAS application.

I then wrote a standard letter which I sent by registered mail to each named party informing them of my actions (my son gave me formal permission to act on his behalf which ACAS are fine with). This was deliberate to let them know that they had been found and we meant business.

It took about 6 months and a lot of extra chasing, but my son eventually got paid his missing wages + holiday pay and received all his missing payslips and tax documents plus a formal reference on headed paper. That last bit was a big victory for me as the owner had openly stated that he did not do references so the fact that ACAS kept hounding him (at my insistence) until he finally relented was a good 'last poke'.

Sadly, during the whole process we discovered that many other creditors were chasing money and most gave up because of a lack of response. Most of these were youngsters working for the first time. Meanwhile, the owners lives in a multimillion pound house about 5 miles away and was often unable to reply quickly as he was in Dubai or on his boat. Such a crap way to treat people.

Good Luck!

EDIT - You have three months from the date of the 'issue' to register with ACAS. Make sure you do not miss that deadline.

part cash-part bank transfer, no pay slip (despite requesting), no registration of standard pension etc, son resigned.

Is there anything vaguely contractual that he can point to to show that he is actually owed these wages? Any records of shifts worked? What does 'has explicitly stated he owes these wages' mean - by some recorded means (email, text, etc.) or just verbally, and hence deniable.

Otherwise reading between the lines of an old owner that has disappeared off the face of the earth and a new owner that seems to be picking up unexpected liabilities, you may find that this is hard to prove and hard to claim back. Nonetheless, I'd get my claim in asap with at least an email to both old owner's email (and as above, any other directors or ex-directors that were directors at the time of employment) and new owner listing out what is owed and on what basis - dates and times of work basically. Get it on record and at least then it's your version.

And as above - ACAS very helpful with this sort of thing. 

Thanks all, much appreciated.  To try and answer a few of the questions:

- we have a voice message from 9th Jan from the owner saying that son is owed his wages, sorry I haven't paid yet but I def will, just trying to raise some cash etc.

- the new owner has had several suppliers chasing him for unpaid debts from previous owner, he's sympathetic to son but the previous owner is blanking him too

- the original owner has not responded to any contact for about 1 week now; he's shut his email

- when son was offered the job, I did track him down on Companies House, v v curious business name (which I've now forgotten and can't retrieve), but his accounts/statements were scary reading

- rumour has it he's in Dubai now ... but just a rumour

- the new business has kept on the other employee and she hasn't been paid by the previous owner for Dec nor is he responding to her

Ultimately, my son's out of 1 month's wages, we can cover it.  What I don't want is to put him thru aggro (he's not esp savvy and streetwise) and undue hope, if it's unlikely we can recover them.  However, really fed up with the owner, esp as son insisted to me when he resigned, (beginning of Dec) to work the whole month as he "didn't want to let the shop down" (indeed, he did equivalent of 4 days overtime too).

Will phone ACAS this morning.

- the new owner has had several suppliers chasing him for unpaid debts from previous owner, he's sympathetic to son but the previous owner is blanking him too

You need to new owner to explicitly state what they bought as a business and prove that - that transaction tells you where the liability for unpaid wages lie. They should also have documentation of that transaction which states what they bought, details what liabilities do or don't come with that sale and identifies who they bought it off - something a bit more solid than an email address or a mobile no

To my mind your claim is with them unless they can show you proof that it isn't

Personally, I'd send a letter before action to the new owners.  If they are not liable, the are likely to provide something to support that, dates, agreements etc.  If they did a handshake deal (even one for £1) they could be liable even if the old owner doesn't realise it - TUPE is great for employees, a nightmare for people buying businesses!  Even if they have in writing that he wasn't taking the staff, TUPE might overrule that.  No 1 priority would be to understand who employed you: Mr Joe Bloggs or Bloggs Retail Ltd, the sign outside either might just be Bloggs.  The new owner may have bought the sign and the stock or he might have bought the shares in Bloggs Retail Ltd.  Even if you buy the sign and stock, the list of suppliers, the customer email addresses etc - you may end up with the staff liabilities via TUPE!  

If you can't track down an address for the old owner you are on a hiding to nothing there.  Even if you managed to somehow win a court case (which needs you to serve the claim on him) you wouldn't get paid and then need to get an enforcement officer (baillif) to try and track him down and extract the money.  

Of course there's one group who are very good at getting their payments and tracking people down eventually: HMRC.  If he hasn't paid your son, you can be sure he's not paid their PAYE stuff!  If he is on the hook for the wages, rather than the company/new owner, then they'll be quite keen to hear from someone who can help them work out what he owes them.  If you were looking for virtual thumb screws to move you up the priority list, a "settlement" might be easier to find!

Theoretically, if he is your employer and he can't pay he is insolvent and so you could try claiming here: https://www.gov.uk/your-rights-if-your-employer-is-insolvent/apply-money-owed I think the problem is you have no documents/contract and probably someone needs to start bankruptcy or liquidation first.  BUT for the sake of a phonecall or filling in a form might be worth it.

So realistically, it's probably chalk it up to life experience.  

Same happened with my son when getting some work experience. The car garage said they would pay him. He did a couple of months but didn't get anything for the last couple of weeks. It wasn't a lot - £400 total. 

The guy 'ran' a few businesses and had a long history of failed companies (on investigation). I emailed him directly and threatened to dob him in the HMRC (cash in hand). Managed to get the money from him, but he was claiming financial hardship over £400.  Wasn't much more we could do really, but he was still trading and hadn't left the country.  Risk to this guy's social media profile was high - relied on a lot of publicity.

Roll on a few years and he's not trading any longer !

Again, thanks for the advice, much appreciated.

In terms of ownership and sale of the shop - I don't know if the previous owner was actually the owner, or managing the business (trying to find out).  He is registered on companies house as having 2 other businesses locally, both of which seem to have closed/stopped trading/opening (facebook stuff been pulled) recently, he's overdue on filing accounts, there are recent strike off notices, and the registered office address at companies house is a company that was dissolved on 23 Dec 2025.

My son resigned early Dec, official last day was 31st Dec, shop was dormant for 10 days, new guy then revamped the shop and opened mid Jan.  The other assistant in the shop who worked with my son (part time) has remained with the business but has not been paid, has raised it with new boss and still not paid.  No idea if she pushed hard but she's had no joy contacting him, nor has the new guy.

But potentially my son had 'left' before new guy started?

I like the idea of approaching HMRC, not least, as it demonstrates my son is not complicit if e.g. his NI / tax has not been declared or paid.  Plus, if it somehow prevents the guy opening another dodgy business, then good.  However, if his tax has not been paid, then not only is he a month's wages out of pocket, but he'll have to fork out 2-3 months tax bill, which is fair enough, but not quite a silver lining!  Also, I gather the HMRC approach won't necessarily get wages to my son?

We couldn't get thru to ACAS as their lines were so busy they were cutting off new callers, which is sad in itself, but met with CAB who were sympathetic, but gently suggesting if there's no address or contact, sometimes cutting your losses is not daft.

Have you saved/selected to keep the voicemail?  Might get deleted after 30 days or so, so if you want it as evidence, tell your voicemail to keep it, record it, or see if you can forward it, etc