MAY 2007 NEWS from www.kitchenhell.co.uk (JUNE NEWS BELOW)

Bad News! MKD Holdings Ltd goes into Administration!
5 May 2007 I received a letter from Moben which confirms what I had heard from a few Kitchenhell visitors. MKD Holdings Ltd has gone into administration because of its financial position.

You will remember that last month, the Homeform Group (owners of MKD Holdings Ltd (Moben and Kitchens Direct), Dolphin and Sharps etc) were sold as a going concern.
So how come MKD Holdings is in trouble so quickly?
The assets and liabilities may have been distributed in such a way that the new owner of Homeform got most or all of the assets and MKD Holdings Ltd was left with the liabilities. Meanwhile the old owners of Homeform probably received a pot of money from the sale.
It's all been 'nicely' arranged so that the contractual obligations to many customers eg those wanting compensation after their kitchen is 'finished', are with MKD Holdings Ltd who are 'broke'.
I've no reason to suppose that arranging things in this way is in any way illegal and it's nothing new. The rules about such things are heavily weighted towards company owners.

I gather my court case is likely to be 'stayed' ie stopped, because administration gives companies some protection from creditors etc.

Keep tuned in for any more news on this.

ANY LEGAL EXPERTS OUT THERE WHO WOULD BE WILLING TO GIVE ADVICE RE ADMINISTRATION? OR ANYONE ELSE WITH MORE INFO?

22 May 2007 The letter that I have from Moben dated 4 May gives details of the Administrator for MKD Holdings Ltd.

The Manchester District Registry Reference is 2,414 of 2007

The Administrator is :
Kroll
Wellington Plaza
31 Wellington Street
Leeds  LS1 4DL

Contact Mr Shaun Sawyer  0113 386 0825


The new MKD is owned by HF Group Acquisitionco Ltd t/a MKD, ('t/a' means 'trading as'); their registered address is not indicated on the letter but the Moben address is still 2 Brindley Road, Old Trafford, Manchester M16 9HQ.  (I later find that the registered address for HF Group Acquisitionco Ltd is as for Moben).

The letter indicates that HF Group Acquisitionco Ltd now owns the trading rights of Moben Kitchens but has no contractual obligations in relation to my contract with MKD Holdings Ltd and will not accept any legal claims in relation to that contract. The letter also suggests that my claim against MKD Holdings Ltd is likely to be stayed by the Court - my research suggests the latter is correct - basically you can't sue a company if it's in Administration. I wonder if a company in Administration can sue me? They probably can, it seems unfair! UPDATE : I'm getting conflicting advice about whether or not it's possible to claim against a company in Administration. I'm going to see if the Court will agree to this. If it does agree then it's possible that the Administrator might choose not to fight the case. If I were to win there'd be no funds to pay with; I'd just be put at the bottom of the list of creditors. This opens up the possibility of claiming against the credit card company and loan company that I used. ANOTHER GOOD REASON FOR PAYING BY CREDIT CARD RATHER THAN BY CASH, CHEQUE OR DEBIT CARD.

I've also had a look at a useful site www.ukdata.com/creditreports to see what's going on with companies in the old 'Homeform Group' and the new 'HF Group' :

IN ADMINISTRATION :
MKD Holdings Limited
Sharps Group Limited
Homeform Group Limited
Homeform Showrooms Limited

NOT TRADING :
Dolphin Bathrooms Limited
Dolphin Bathrooms Direct Limited
Homeform Bathrooms Limited
Homeform Bedrooms Limited
Homeform Home Improvements Limited
Homeform Kitchens Limited
Homeform Windows Limited

NEW COMPANIES :
HF Group Acquisitionco Limited
HF Group Guaranteeco Limited
HF Group Holdings (UK) Limited
HF Group Propco Limited
HF Group UK 2 Limited
HF Group UK 3 Limited

There may be others I've missed; all the above are registered at the usual Moben address.

GOOD LUCK to anyone who can figure out what's been going on! I've nothing to indicate that anybody has done anything illegal in this respect.
But it does stink - maybe the laws on administration need reviewing?

25 May 2007 A lady called Jeanne, who sounds like she's been very poorly treated by Moben has contacted me and is keen to hear from those of you who have had bad experiences with Moben. She wants us disgruntled Moben customers to get together in some way. She would like to hear from you if you're prepared for your Moben story to be used eg given to a national newspaper. If you're prepared to help Jeanne, then please email her at mlob@onetel.com - she's also quite happy to ring you (if you wish) in which case please give her your landline number.

Today I've also written a letter to the 'new' Moben asking them a few questions about how they are intending to conduct their business now that they are in new ownership. Stay tuned to Kitchenhell to see what they say. Remember the new owner was quoted as saying it would be 'Business as usual' - which is not good news!


JUNE 2007 NEWS from www.kitchenhell.co.uk
9 June 2007 Some minor updates to site, mainly 2 months of news per page to limit growth in number of pages. New page Employees' Corner added
Moben aren't the only ones who are criticised re kitchens - see Manchester Evening News article re BBC's DIY SOS

Kroll, the Administrators of MKD Holdings (and several other Homeform companies) have suggested I put in a claim direct to them rather than through the Court. This could get me on the list of creditors (near the bottom?)

Stockport Trading Standards passed me on to Consumerdirect. Their response is in red below :

Dear Mr Walker

Thank you for your enquiry to Consumer Direct dated 31/05/07. Your reference number for this case is ************ and should be quoted in all further correspondence regarding this case.

Based on the information supplied within your email the key facts of the case appear to be as follows:

You are taking legal action against MKD Holdings, which is now in administration.

If your action is successful, any award made to you would be lodged with the administrators as a debt owed by the company in administration. It may be awarded higher priority than other debts by the judge.

You are right to say that having paid part of the cost using a credit card may have helped - where goods or services have been paid for using a form of credit, i.e. a credit card or a credit agreement, you may have an equal liability claim against the credit firm under section 75 of the CONSUMER CREDIT ACT 1974, providing the purchase amount is over £100, but less than £30,000.

For more in-depth information, we would suggest you contact the Insolvency Service on 0845 602 9848 or at www.insolvency.gov.uk, as they are the specialist body in this area.

If you require any further advice or information about this case, please do not hesitate to contact Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06.

Thank you for your enquiry

13 June 2007 I wrote to Kroll, the Administrators, to claim for compensation and also to comment on the way MKD Holdings Ltd's directors had run the company.

15 June 2007 Thank you to those of you who have contacted Jeanne (see 25 May above).
Just to show that poor service from Moben is nothing new, here's an article from back in 1999.

16 June 2007 I received a reply to my letter to 'new' Moben (see 25 May). The reply expressed surprise that I wasn't taking up their 'offer' of going to the Furniture Ombudsman. Moben obviously have a different interpretation of 'offer' from the rest of us!
They also offered a meeting and phone call about my kitchen.
They declined to answer my 10 questions about how they will be improving their business now that they are in new ownership. In brief, this means I will continue to assume :
1) Their advertising will be along similar lines to that of 'old' Moben
2) Information from their salesmen, adverts etc will be no more accurate
3) Payment by customers will still be up front
4) Oops! I missed out question No 4
5) Staff, fitters, plasterers etc will be no more competent
6) Arrangements for dealing with faults (or not dealing with them!) will be unimproved
7) Compensation offers will not improve
8) Training of Customer Care (?) staff will not be improved
9) They'll still be pushing Tecnik appliances
10) They either don't have a set of 'Values' to which all staff are expected to work, or if they do 'Honesty' isn't one of them.
Alternatively, they may not realise that if they don't answer questions, it's only natural for me to assume the worst. Or they could think the information is commercially sensitive. Or they may have another reason! Sorry but they didn't tell me.

!8 June I replied to Moben's letter to explain why I'd declined their 'offer' and to ask for information to confirm that they have no Contractual obligations to me.
I also received notification from the Court that 'Upon the defendant going into Administration the claim is stayed until further order.' - but I'm still getting conflicting reports about whether or not MKD Holdings Ltd is in Administration.

22 June I've just spotted that this site has been nominated for the Times Best 50 Business Blogs, see http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1950404.ece (I gather there are problems with this link - it works only sometimes)

25 June Moben phoned me today to offer me a meeting with Mr Burn and Mr Day to discuss the way forward. From previous correspondence I understand this to mean discussion about remedial works to my kitchen. As I have already done most of these myself already and as Moben have, on several occasions, shown themselves to be incompetent at works related to fitted kitchens then I saw no point in discussion about remedial works. What I would really like from Moben is answers to the questions in my 25 May letter (see also 16 June above). However, I can't see Moben being willing to answer these questions as they know they don't have satisfactory answers. I did tell the caller that I'd also welcome the nearly £5000 that I claimed from MKD Holdings Ltd - I didn't seriously expect any response to this.

30 June I've received an interesting dossier from a Mr S providing details of yet another botched Moben Kitchen. I found the letter from the Furniture Ombudsman particularly interesting and will be devoting a page to that organisation. The dossier really does show what a bunch of cowboys MKD Holdings t/a Moben Kitchens are.


Please contact me at mw@kitchenhell.co.uk if you have any news on Moben etc or if you have experience of their 'service'. I'm particularly interested to know how customers of 'new' Moben (ie since 5 April 2007) are getting on.