A voluntary strike-off costs a director a few pounds and a form. It is one of the most common ways a business debt disappears, and most creditors assume that is the end of it. It is not. A creditor has standing to have the company restored, and once restored the debt is alive, the company can be wound up, and the directors' conduct comes under a liquidator's examination.
Companies House must advertise a strike-off application and creditors can object, but many never see the notice, and directors know it. Once dissolved, the company's remaining assets pass to the Crown and your claim has nothing to attach to.
The law anticipates this. A creditor is expressly among those who can apply to restore a company, precisely because dissolution should not be an escape hatch.
We restore the company, by court order through our partner solicitors under our case management, and then act. Depending on the position: renewed demand and recovery; a winding-up petition, putting the company into liquidation so a liquidator can pursue directors for overdrawn loan accounts, preferences, disposals to connected parties or wrongful trading; or, where we have acquired the debt from you, we pursue it as principal in our own name.
This is our native ground. The same forensic function that prices our own portfolios builds the director-conduct evidence here.
For creditors with ongoing exposure, our strike-off watch monitors applications against your debtors and lodges objections before dissolution happens at all, which is cheaper than restoration after.
Assessment, £295, credited on instruction. It tells you whether restoration is available, what the company is likely to have held, and whether the directors present a realistic target.
Court-route restoration from £3,950 including partner-solicitor fees. Recovery thereafter on our standard terms, or, where the claim suits our portfolio, we may offer to acquire it outright.
Strike-off watch: subscription for portfolios, one-off fee for single debtors.
Sometimes not, and the assessment will say so plainly. Where the directors have assets or the company held them, it frequently is.
Often, yes. If the claim fits our portfolio we will make an offer at assessment.
Restoration for creditors is time-limited; give us the dissolution date and we will tell you where you stand.
Different process, same outcome. See our Scottish restorations page or simply tell us in the form.
Send the company number, or the company name and what has happened. You will receive a written assessment within two working days: what has happened, whether it can be fixed, the route, the price and the timescale. The assessment fee of £295 is credited against your fee if you instruct us.