Staff and parents say they are owed thousands of pounds after the sudden closure of a day nursery.
Eleven members of staff lost their jobs at the Old School Nursery, in Kibworth, when the owners closed the nursery at short notice.
The sudden closure left parents of 52 children desperately looking for alternative care.
Staff say they are owed wages and severance money and parents say they have paid in advance for care their children will not receive.
A mother-of-two, who did not want to be named, said: "My husband and I are owed about £800. Our cheque for this month's care was banked on Friday, November 2.
"It was the same day the owners closed the nursery.
"We are angry at the way we and our children have been treated. They loved the nursery and we were very pleased with the dedication of the staff.
"The staff even phoned everyone to tell us what had happened, even though they had lost their jobs.
"They also provided us individual progress records of our children which are very precious."
The mother, who lives in Market Harborough and works in Leicester, said: "The nursery was ideal for us. Now we are having to find an alternative provider."
Another parent, who lives in Kibworth, said: "We are angry that we paid our £240 fees for November on October 24 to have the service withdrawn without the four-weeks notice which was in our contract."
The nursery was closed at 6pm on Friday, November 2.
Parents and staff held a meeting in Kibworth at the Methodist church hall last Friday, to discuss what happened at the nursery in Paget Street.
A former staff member, who does not want to be named, said: "There were 50 people at the meeting. The closure came as a shock to the managers and staff alike.
"On the Friday that the nursery closed, we were given only the shortest notice. We were told the nursery was insolvent and were not paid for the month of October. We have also not been paid any redundancy or accrued holiday money."
She said the closure had nothing to do with the poor Ofsted report the nursery had received following an inspection in September.
Director of the nursery Gary Martin said: "It was a difficult decision. But the directors met on the Friday (November 2) and decided that the company was insolvent, that we could not meet our outgoings.
"You cannot continue to trade when you are insolvent so we stopped operating at close of business (Friday, November 2, at 6pm)."
He said it was "unfortunate" that the staff had not been paid as the pay date fell on November 5. But said he was trying to sort something out with the creditors.
He said the situation may not have arisen if all the parents had paid what they owed in fees and Leicestershire County Council had funded its free places. But one parent said that from the meeting the parents and staff held last Friday it was apparent everyone had paid their fees for childcare services for November.
A spokeswoman for County Hall said: "There were 20 children on roll at the Old School Nursery, in Kibworth, that we were paying Nursery Education Funding for.
"The nursery received an initial payment of £10,731.42, which is the equivalent of just over 10 weeks funding. As it shut after eight weeks, it was actually overpaid.
"We are now in the process of claiming the outstanding money back."
