Pandemic 'last nail in the coffin' for Brighthouse - leading rent-to-own retailer with store in Worksop

The company, which has a store in Worksop, is now being run by administrators who are attempting to salvage parts of the business.

Customers are being advised to make the monthly payments as normal to keep their household goods, with administrators acting as the collecting agent.

The company had been struggling after an influx of compensation claims for selling to people who could not repay, before its shops were shut because of coronavirus restrictions on retailers.

The collapse, which was announced on Friday, means that the administrators - Grant Thornton - will now try to find buyers for all, or some, of the business.

The company's website was still operating on Monday, March 30.

Alongside many other lenders of high-cost credit, the company was being challenged by people who said they were given credit when they should not have been.

In October 2017, the company was fined nearly £15m by the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), for not acting as a "responsible lender".

Some of those customers were given rental agreements, despite being unable to realistically afford to make the repayments.

Julie Palmer, from corporate recovery business Begbies Traynor, said: "Coronavirus was the final nail in the coffin for BrightHouse."

BrightHouse, the trading name of Caversham Finance Limited, has 240 shops and 2,400 employees, whose jobs are now at serious risk.

The firm's collapse came minutes before Italian restaurant chain Carluccio's also fell into administration. Collectively, the two firms employ 4,500 people.

BrightHouse's 200,000 rent-to-own customers make monthly payments for household appliances, in effect renting goods (and paying interest) until they have paid in full.

Many are on low incomes and find it difficult to access credit from mainstream lenders to pay for fridges, TVs, washing machines and other electrical items. Only about a third are in work.

Customers should continue to make payments in the usual way, the administrators confirmed, although for some the closure of shops and no doorstep collection owing to coronavirus means that should be done in a different way.