Part-finished house, developer gone into liquidation

Hello I'm not sure if this is the right forum but I was hoping somebody could advise me.

My sister and her partner had paid a deposit on a part-finished house just before Christmas. The house was due to be finished this month but due to various bits and bobs it was pushed back a few weeks, they weren't overly concerned as they thought it was just typical builder behaviour. But after not being able to get in touch with the developer for about 3 week and realising that there is no builders onsite either they have just found out that the builder has gone into liquidation.

The builder rang into my sisters voicemail saying that they had some issues and that the bank would be in touch to arrange payment. They googled it today and found an article from the Sunday business post which said that they developer had gone into liquidation and that the liquidators would be finishing the estate.

does anyone know where they stand at this point?

They will need to contact the liquidator. Were contracts exchanged?

I don't believe so, that is one of the reasons they'd been trying to get in touch with him over the past few weeks.

Who was the deposit paid to? Hopefully not the builder ...

i couldn't be certain but I think it was the builder. They have some sort of signed paperwork but I'm not sure what it is I know they were waiting on contracts to be sent to the solicitor which was supposed to have happened in Jan but still hasn't.

Sorry none of us are really up to speed on the ins and outs of the whole process.

I'm afraid until you can get some definitive answers about what paperwork exists, what money was paid to whom and under what circumstances, it's unlikely anyone can give you any meaningful answers or guidance.

Most of us ordinary people don't understand "the ins and outs of the whole process" of buying a house, which is why they employ the services people who do, solicitors, in order to protect their interests.

The worst case scenario here is that the money they paid the builder / developer is tied up in the liquidation or gone completely and they won't get their house either. I stress this is the worst case scenario as we have no real information.