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Liquidator of old Emoov says ‘pay up front’ customers are owed £1.5m

Legal firm James Cowper Kreston also says former staff are to be paid £800 each, although this is much less than many are owed in back pay and bonuses.

Nigel Lewis

The liquidator of the company behind the former Emoov business has revealed that the thousands of estate agency customers who had paid the company in advance for its sales service prior to tist demise are collectively owed £1.5 million.

Liquidator James Cowper Kreston says it has received claims from these customers for payment but, because they are deemed to be unsecured creditors, it is unlikely they will receive much or any of the funds they lost when Emoov Ltd when into administration two years ago.

The company went down owing nearly £15 million in total and its ‘secured’ and ‘preferential’ creditors are ahead of unsecured creditor as the liquidator attempts to redistribute the cash left over.

Funds

This totals some £456,000 approximately half of which has come from the money paid by Mashroom Ltd for the former Emoov’s website, IT and goodwill.

Mashroom has since relaunched the business with a newly-designed website, business model and management team.

It has also been revealed that the purchase of the old Emoov’s database agreed to pay additional fees to the liquidator although so far this has only generated £500.

James Cowper Kreston also says it has enough funds to pay preferential creditors, who include the many staff made redundant. These are to be paid £800 each plus any outstanding holiday pay, later this year.

But the true amount owed in pay, bonuses and other payments to former staff totals some £373,000, which has been covered by the government’s Redundancy Payments Service.

January 14, 2020

One comment

  1. As many will know the Advertising standards and Emoov have reneged on an agreement that false Trust Pilot reviews will be taken off the current Emoov website.

    What the property community and vendors may not be aware of, is that at present Emoov (2) on their website are advertising the fact that they can save potential vendors thousands of pounds in commission as it did (?) in 2018. Which I have also asked the ASA to be removed.

    Specifically, the current wording on the official Emoov (2) website as of today 14/01/2020 states that on average a vendor can save £3,050 by using their services.

    The exact wording is …

    ‘* emoov charges a fixed fee of £895 (inclusive of VAT), instead of a % of your sale price. According to HomeOwners’ Alliance website, high street estate agents usually charge between 1-2.5% for a sole agency and 2.5-3% for a joint agency (plus VAT in both cases) of your sale price.

    Our savings calculations are based on our £895 (inclusive of VAT) flat fee. Our 2018 figure is based on an estimated traditional estate agent charge of 1.5% plus VAT based on sales values facilitated by emoov in comparison with our flat fee of £895 inclusive of VAT. Please note that these numbers predate our acquisition of emoov, but the price range differentials remain as stated.’

    Given the stark reality that over 5,000 vendors lost all their money in 2018, I am at a loss how the new Mashroom/Emoov company headed by Naveen Jaspal can have a website displaying what it does.

    A more accurate wording would be – in 2018, the original Emoov ceased trading with losses in excess of £5.6M and all vendors at the time of the company closing, some of whom were migrated from Tepilo, lost all monies they had paid in good faith upfront to Emoov.

    Whilst the current company Emoov is in no way connected in any financial way with the former company Emoov, please be aware that paying an upfront fee may lead to financial loss, should the present company cease trading.

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