CALGARY- Thursday was the first time homeowners faced the owner of ‘The Remodelers’ since the failed renovation company declared bankruptcy.
They convinced the bankruptcy trustee to investigate allegations of fraud.
“We want to get his books open, we want to get access to that,” Remodelers creditor Tina Evans said.
Tina Evans is one of two dozen homeowners who paid Bruce Hopkins and ‘The Remodelers’ to renovate their homes.
The company filed for bankruptcy October 24th, leaving all the work unfinished.
On Thursday, 200 creditors including homeowners, suppliers and employees faced Hopkins at a bankruptcy trustee meeting.
Many allege he knew his company was in trouble and continued to take deposits and want a deeper investigation.
“You can’t say or take substantial amounts of money, say you’re going to do an amount of work and know that you don’t have the means to be able to do that,” Evans said.
As a result, Richard Price the Trustee is referring those allegations to the Federal Superintendent of Bankruptcy.
“And then the office can refer it on to their investigations unit or directly to the RCMP for investigation to see if there were either criminal offences or any bankruptcy offences committed in the administration of the estate or prior to the estate,” Price said.
Hopkins denies any wrong doing claiming he was trying to keep the company from going out of business and blames past accounting and management mistakes.
“We had receivables that we were having a tough time getting the money in the door. That’s just the truth,” Bruce Hopkins said.
“I’m going to say that I did the best I could with what I had to work with. That’s what I’m going to say,” Hopkins said. “Did I know that the company was in a point of no return? No I didn’t.”
The next step will be the sale of the company’s assets from their southeast showroom.
However, the bankruptcy trustee says after paying Canada Revenue, employees and the landlord, there won’t be anything left for homeowners or other creditors.
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