Why this page is here

We arrange sales of companies. There is a category of situation where a sale is not the right answer and a licensed insolvency practitioner is, and we would rather set that out on our own website than have you find out three weeks in.

Speak to an insolvency practitioner if

• A winding-up petition has been presented, or a statutory demand has been served and the 21 days are running
• The company has real assets — property, plant, stock, book debts, intellectual property
• The company is still trading and you are deciding whether to keep going
• There are employees to be made redundant
• There is a significant overdrawn director’s loan account
• You are thinking about moving assets, contracts or the business out of the company
• You are not sure whether the company is insolvent

What a licensed insolvency practitioner is

Only people authorised by one of the recognised professional bodies — ICAEW, IPA, ICAS or Chartered Accountants Ireland — can take insolvency appointments. You can check anyone against the Insolvency Practitioner search on GOV.UK.

Anyone offering to close your company who is not on that register is not an insolvency practitioner, whatever they call themselves. That includes us. We do compliance work and we arrange company sales; we do not take appointments and we do not pretend to.

What to be careful of

If anyone tells you that selling your company ends your responsibility as a director for the period you ran it, walk away. It does not, no transaction can make it so, and firms marketing it on that basis have been shut down.

We will tell you

If your situation is on the list above, you will hear it in the first conversation, before any fee is discussed. That is not us being cautious — a transaction that should not have happened is worse for everyone, including us.