London Auctions Announces Plan To Go Into Liquidation

Customers had been besieging High Road auction house with calls

Unpaid customers of London Auctions on Chiswick High Road have received letter notifying them of a plan to liquidate the company.

Many are owed considerable sums of money for items that have been sold at the auction house and had been unable to reach the management despite repeated calls. In some cases the amount of money currently unpaid is several thousand pounds.

In documents sent to customers with the letter 94 auction creditors are listed, mainly private individuals rather than auction professionals. The average amount owed is £469 with the highest individual loss of £6,886. This does not include crown or trade and general expense creditors.

Liquidation will mean that the remaining assets of the company will be sold and any funds remain once HMRC and staff have been paid will be distributed among the creditors. If 10% of creditors object then liquidation can be prevented.

According to one report the business has been asking customers to collect unsold items recently from their premises at 30-34 Chiswick High Road.

Customers have told us that despite regularly phoning and emailing London Auctions over a long period they had not received payment of outstanding invoices or acknowledgement from the accounts department. In one case when a customer did manage to get through they were told the accounting system was down.

The current management took over the business that was formerly known as High Road Auctions in May 2016. The previous company was liquidated with some creditors left unpaid and the business was eventually rebranded as London Auctions.

The sole director of London Auctions Ltd is 38-year-old Sameer Mahomed who was formerly also a director of a number of other companies since dissolved. The South African trained account has a CV which boast of having worked for Deloittes and with ex-Dragon James Caan’s venture capital company.

The letter received by creditors states that Ashok K. Bhardwaj, of Bhardwaj Insolvency Practitioners has been paid £5,500 out the personal funds of Sameer Mahomed to present a statement of affairs and act as liquidator. This is the same firm that handled the liquidation of High Road Auctions. The letter states that as 'appropriate reports were submitted to the insolvency service' it was felt that having worked for the same director before 'would not give rise to any threats to the fundamental principles under the Code Ethics'. Mr Bhardwaj had a disciplinary consent order made against him last year for overcharging, failure to produce fee estimates and late filing of an annual report. He was fined £1,500 plus costs.

London Auctions is not connected to Chiswick Auctions which continues to operate on Colville Road.

We have emailed London Auctions and phoned their offices for an update but have not received a reply. When we visited the premises this Saturday it was closed and there was no answer when we tried to contact anyone who might be inside

July 15, 2019