A husband-and-wife whose furniture company went into liquidation owing customers almost £100,000 have both been banned as company directors. 

George and Williamina Hay were directors of DWH Trading Ltd, which sold adjustable beds and chairs, mostly to elderly and vulnerable customers, from their home address in Aberdeenshire. 

The company was struggling financially by April 2023 but continued to take orders and payments from customers in the following six months before it entered liquidation. 

Both directors should have known that the majority of these orders would never be fulfilled. George Hay, 65, of Greenacres Crescent, Peterhead, was disqualified as a company director for seven years. Williamina Hay, 61, of the same address, was also banned for seven years. 

Mike Smith, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “George and Williamina Hay both took orders from customers in the six months before their company went into liquidation, most of which they knew would not be fulfilled. 

“Most of the customers they took these orders from were elderly and vulnerable. Both George and Williamina Hay have fallen significantly short of the standards we expect of company directors which is why they have now been disqualified until March 2032.”

DWH Trading was established in March 2021 but in just over two years the company had serious cash flow issues. 

At the start of April 2023, DWH Trading’s bank balance stood at less than £6,000 and the company had no other non-cash assets. 

The company also had 13 outstanding orders from customers who had paid them £27,250. DWH Trading had not ordered the goods from its suppliers and the orders remained outstanding at liquidation. 

Despite this, George and Williamina Hay allowed the company to take a further 55 orders from April 2023 until the company entered liquidation in October of that year. 

A total of 42 of the 55 orders with a value of £69,750 were not placed with the company’s suppliers. 

In one example, a pensioner from Stonehaven paid a £2,000 deposit to the company for an adjustable chair which was never ordered from the manufacturer.  

Similarly, a customer from a village in west Aberdeenshire paid a £9,000 deposit for furniture which was never delivered. 

Customers from as far away as Dundee and Elgin also ended up losing out. 

The company owed a total of £143,340 to its creditors in liquidation. Insolvency Service investigators have found that at least £97,000 of this was owed to customers for stock which it did not order. 

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade accepted disqualification undertakings from the pair, and their bans both started on Monday 3 March.  

The undertakings prevent them from being involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.