Legal assistance with contractor bankruptcy

Questioner

Good day, Our contractor went bankrupt during the renovation. At the last minute, he sent an invoice for the installments, regardless of the work performed. Immediately after the bankruptcy, I wrote to the trustee by registered letter in which I stated the following. -I expect the curator to decide within 15 days whether the work will be continued - the curator comes to the work site to record the work and agree on the amount to be invoiced - I will not pay the installment invoice as, in my opinion, it is not in accordance with the work performed. I sent this letter by registered mail at the beginning of February and have not received any response from the curator. Now, on March 11th, I received a reminder from the receiver to pay the installment invoice immediately, and there was no substantive mention of my letter. What do you advise me to do now in this.

Questioner

Dear questioner, I would send the trustee a copy of the registered letter you previously sent and ask him to inform you immediately of the next steps. I would also inform him in that letter that you believe the stipulated period (of two weeks) has passed without any response from him and that he can therefore no longer compel you to comply. In a situation like yours, you can, under Article 37 of the Bankruptcy Act, set a reasonable deadline for the trustee to indicate whether they still intend to fulfill the agreement. The question is whether the two-week deadline was too short. However, if the trustee had found the term to be too short, he could/should have responded by stating that he found the term to be too short, but that he would come back to the matter within a certain (slightly longer and reasonable) period. Failure to respond to your request, or failure to respond in a timely manner, means that the trustee forfeits their right to demand performance of the agreement. However, when requesting performance, you must be willing and able to fulfill your own obligations. If the curator is late, you can choose: a. termination of the agreement with additional compensation or b. replacement damages. However, your claims will then be concurrent in the bankruptcy and it is therefore questionable whether you will see anything of them again. Regardless of the above, I'd also like to emphasize that I don't know if any general terms and conditions apply in your case. These might include a provision regarding the contractor's bankruptcy!