Has our landscaper gone bust?

Our landscaper seems to have disappeared half way through creating a new garden for us! We’re trying to find out if his business has closed. The Mairie suggested the chamber of commerce. They’ve suggested Société.com. He’s also left us without gates to our property! Hé removed our old ones and we had new ones on order through him. Very shocked as he seemed a lovely chap and the work he has done is very good. Have tried email and telephone but heard nothing since 22nd May. Our property is our private holiday home in Brittany and we will be there at the end of this month. Other than trying to find him in person, can anyone suggest how else we might find out about his business? We’ve paid for about 70% of the work - might we get any of this back if he has gone bust? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

If you put the business name or SIREN number into the search bit of this site it should give it’s current status -

https://www.verif.com/

Maybe he got ill? Quite a few people have…

If he has gone bust and was a proper business then eventually a mandataire judiciaire will be appointed, and you can make a claim.

You can find out if you pop his details into these sites

www.bodacc.fr if you have his numéro d’inscription de la société au registre du commerce et des sociétés (RCS).
Or
www.infogreffe.fr or www.societe.com

However if he was a good person it’s likely that he has only billed you for work to date (including profits and materials on order) so there won’t be much to claim. If one of the bills you’ve paid included advance payment for the gates maybe focus on trying to get them?

Thank you Timothy. I’ve done this and it provides similar info to société.com. Neither website confirms it has closed which is hopeful and puzzling at the same time! Sleuthing continues…

Thanks Jane. If we knew where he ordered the gates from I would most certainly follow that up but we are in the dark! I have checked the websites and neither says he has gone bust. I truly hope he hasn’t as he seemed such a nice person. I had considered that he might be ill. It’s just the length of time of non-contact that worries me; it will be 8 weeks on Friday! We will have to visit the business address when we are in France at the end of this month and see if we can learn anything more. Many thanks for taking the time to reply.

Kind regards
Estelle

Is he French? Another possibility is that he was offered a very lucrative contract, and since he knows you were not there took it upon himself to decide it didn’t matter if your job was delayed. In which case he will probably re start work the day before you return.

We have found that many French Tradesmen,
Don’t take calls from international (non-French) numbers,
Don’t respond to emails,
Do resume work the day before you re-arrive if they have a time bound job elsewhere, or if they have a job they can get immediate sign-off and therefore immediate payment for,
May hold out until you re-appear with a question that is hard to get an answer to over the phone i.e. if landscaping, would you like the slope to be stepped, convex, concave, dead even gradient?
If he’s done circa 70% of the work then I wouldn’t lose too much sleep.

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Yes he’s French. I would be delighted to see him again. My neighbour sent me a photo and the weeds are nearly as tall as me!

Thanks Ray, here’s hoping! It’s really the lack of gates that’s bothering us. We’ll BBQ amongst the weeds if we have to but would feel more secure with gates on the house. I’ve decided to post a letter to the addresses I have for him telling him when we’ll be over in the hope that if there’s perhaps an email issue, a letter might reach him somehow.

Hope all goes well…

Just a thought, if your garden has turned into a weed patch… clear a good wide area… before having a barbecue… it’s been so hot that everything is ready to burn… at the least opportunity.

Recently, there have been a couple of nasty fires near us… unintentional of course… and thankfully no loss of life… but pompiers say they were caused by BBQ’s … (although no idea which sort).

hope you do get your gates… :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Thank you Stella. Fortunately the landscaper had laid one patio so that should be a safe spot to bbq on. Will update this post eventually with the outcome!

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Is there perhaps some one on SF or locally to you that could go “look up” the landscaper to see if he is still working and report back to you - incognito of course… (not suggesting sending the “boys” round" if you knew what I mean, nudge nudge…). Information is knowledge and all that. Best sometimes to know the answers to questions before you ask them :wink:

Before rushing to conclusions, check he’s not suffered the Covid and slipped off his perch!!!

… and knowledge is P-O-W-E-R :hugs:

It you Have paid for new gates I whold contact the gendarmes

A little update: our landscaper is alive and well! We tracked him down during our visit and confronted him about his disappearing act. He was very surprised to see us and very apologetic’ explaining that he had taken over another landscapers business and had been too busy to resume our job and had staffing issues. He has promised he will get the job done…eventually. He sent his guys round to strim the garden so that we could see our way to the shed. We were hugely relieved to find him and to hear him say he would be back. Why he couldn’t just communicate with us I do not know!!! Anyway, feeling much relieved about the whole thing, thanks for the helpful replies.

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I am tempted to say “he’s French!”

But he probably assumed that everyone knew that he’a taken over another business and had staff problems. Certainly round here we found neighbours knew what’s up, and would tell us that our builder is on holiday in Morocco, or won’t be working that week as has his grandchildren! To his credit our builder also told us, but then we were here. If we hadn’t been he probably wouldn’t have!

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