Isn't this sad?

[Rhiannon]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-38935251

It's a beautiful dress. How shocking.



The family that have lost their business, their income and their home are probably a little bit upset too.

[Sriram]

Why would the dress go missing? It should be with someone somewhere!!  The dress is not the cleaners asset. The owners should be able to get it back.

[Owlswing]

Why would the dress go missing? It should be with someone somewhere!!  The dress is not the cleaners asset. The owners should be able to get it back.

Yes, they should, BUT can they afford the legal costs of doing so?

[Sriram]

What legal costs??  If they have the bill, the local authorities should be able to locate the dress and give it back to them. The cleaners cannot possibly have any claim on the dress.

[Harrowby Hall]

I sympathise with your views, Sriram, but what we don't know is how Scottish Law deals with insolvency. To me, it appears that the sequestrators responsible for realising the assets of the insolvent company may have treated customers' property as assets of the insolvent company. They may even seen a bit of old cloth and thought that it was rubbish!

Perhaps the distraught family could go to the police and report the dress stolen.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I sympathise with your views, Sriram, but what we don't know is how Scottish Law deals with insolvency. To me, it appears that the sequestrators are responsible for realising the assets of the insolvent company may have treated customers' property as assets of the insolvent company. They may even seen a bit of old cloth and thought that it was rubbish!

Perhaps the distraught family could go to the police and report the dress stolen.

Where theirs blame there's a claim.

[splashscuba]

What legal costs??  If they have the bill, the local authorities should be able to locate the dress and give it back to them. The cleaners cannot possibly have any claim on the dress.

When you say local authorities, what do you mean ?

They could report it stolen but the police would, in all likelihood, treat it as a civil matter.

They could take it to the small claims court but if the dress has gone, all they might get is compensation, which is probably not what they want.

[Harrowby Hall]

This story has now gone viral.

You read about it here first ....

[Rhiannon]

It's found!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-38944387

The owners of the cleaners have lost their business and their home and been smeared all over social media as thieves who sold the dress and did a runner, but hey, it's nice to have a happy ending.

[floo]

We had a christening robe of about that age, which had been passed down the family and had seen several generations, including my sisters and myself, christened in it. I have no idea what happened to it, but suspect my mother threw it out!  

[Bubbles]

They haven't got it yet

Mrs Newall said a representative from sequestrators Wylie & Bisset was also at the dry cleaners shop on Saturday and insisted that for "procedural reasons" the dress had to go back to his office in Glasgow.
She added: "This is unbelievable and my mum was beside herself, but they have assured us that it will be delivered safely back to us on Monday.
"It's going to be apparently driven from Edinburgh to my mum and dad's house."

I wouldn't count my chickens till they hatched.

[Sassy]

They haven't got it yet

I wouldn't count my chickens till they hatched.

The property is not assets as it does not belong to the shops owners. They do not sell a product like furniture but provide a service to clean clothes which belong to the person who contracts them to clean them for a fee.
Even if liquidation took place the clothes are not assets belonging to the owner. They can however take monies paid for cleaning the item but I would think they could  not take  the items themselves as they are not fixtures and fittings.

[Harrowby Hall]

The property is not assets as it does not belong to the shops owners. They do not sell a product like furniture but provide a service to clean clothes which belong to the person who contracts them to clean them for a fee.
Even if liquidation took place the clothes are not assets belonging to the owner. They can however take monies paid for cleaning the item but I would think they could  not take  the items themselves as they are not fixtures and fittings.

I think that this should be entirely the case and certainly would be in England. The only query that I have is that this happened in Scotland, which has its own legal system. I note that what is called "liquidation" in England appears to be called "sequestration" in Scotland and wonder, therefore, if there are any other differences in Scottish law that would make an English consideration of this case not entirely appropriate.