So the company I work for has gone into administration; no warning, go home and await instructions.

I’m looking around at my options, but I have some questions around practical matters.

There is some talk that the co. might be bought and everything will go on as normal. Great, but I am owed £700 in expenses. I assume these are on the old co and are unlikely to be honoured.

Would a new co have to follow TUPE regs? Or is there likely to be some ‘negotiating’ regarding salary, benefits…?

If the thing falls over, I will get redundancy. Will my notice be paid on top of that?

Does anyone have some good advice?

Anyway, I have a day off and the weather looks like being nice, so I think I have a plan for the morning.

It’s been a while and IANAL, but iirc it will depend what is bought (if anything). If someone buys the business then existing contractual terms continue, if the company is allowed to die and someone buys the assets (which might include brands as well as physical stuff) you might not be in as secure a position, but if someone wants the business, in most cases they’ll want (most of at least) the people. They might, or might not, honour existing expenses claims etc. out of pragmatism – who wants to start off with disgruntled staff?

Expenses, The administrators will let you know. It’s a relatively small amt, you might get a cheque, depends really on how bust your company is. You may be at the back of a very long list of creditors.

TUPE, don’t think it happens if one company id being bought out by another, but I could be wrong.

Redundancy/notice. they have to give you notice that they are going to make you redundant. Notice pay and redundancy pay are different things.

You’re entitled to your statutory redundancy payment calculated using the govt formula and capped at 479 a week. This is tax free. You’re also due notice pay, outstanding holiday and any unpaid wages. I would argue that unpaid wages would include unpaid expenses. These claims can be made against NI if the company doesn’t have the funds. The Administrators should provide you with forms to fill in and I think you can apply online too.

If the company is ‘bought’ edlong has the answers. I think deals can be struck whereby staff need to sign a new contract and effectively there’s no TUPE. However if you don’t want that new contract you still have the redundancy entitlements.

this is a good source:

https://www.gov.uk/your-rights-if-your-employer-is-insolvent/claiming-money-owed-to-you%5D

TUPE can apply when a company is in administration – it depends on its “status” essentially if its bankrupt then TUPE doesn’t apply, but if the administrators are trying to sell it on as a going concern then it does.

Regardless, any claim for redundancy following a company going in to administration is against the governments compensation scheme not the insolvent company or the purchasing company.

this summary is useful: https://goo.gl/tB5eLx

Sorry to hear this. If it were me whatever the outcome i would be looking for another job today, hold out for the payout of course but if the co can go belly up at no notice it could do again.

Company I worked for went through this in 2009, my memory has turned to mush, but I vaguely recall being advised to fill in a form besides Statutory Redundancy Pay that put a claim against the company to say they owed me notice pay and outstanding holiday pay.
Whatever this other form was, which gave me a provisional hearing date, became obsolete once I was paid Statutory Redundancy Pay and I notified this body.

While you might want to give yourself a bit of holiday time if the worst happens and redundancy pay covers the bills, my advice is don’t leave it too long to start actively searching again. I gave myself ~1 month off, but it then took me ~5 months to get a paid job that suited my needs and it did have a negative affect on my mental health for a while.

I’ve been looking around since the New Year anyway; I’ve a few possibles on the go.

Except for a phone call telling me to home from my appointment, I’ve had nothing in writing.

I doubt I’ll get my expenses paid; I can’t imagine any buyer will give 2 poo’s about my grievance, I just wondered if they would be obliged.

Oh well.

what was the companys product line, and is it likely to have a buyer.

when a company goes bust all assets are sold and the moniesfirst pay tax and vat, then anything left is used to pay the creditors, it takes many months, and huge amounts of paper if youre a creditor.

Similar happened to myself (and @donald) back in 1984.
I’d only been there 5 weeks!

Can’t recall about expenses (was for relocation, books bought) but we did receive some amount (statutory pay possibly) and the government then went into the queue of creditors. Some other amounts remained as our claims against the company and we eventually got – what – 20% of claims.

Not a good time, as I’d just bought a flat. IIRC as well, the same administrators were also winding up my uncle’s company at the same time 🙁