A guide, not advice. This explains how things generally work. A licensed insolvency practitioner will tell you what applies to your company or to you.
How to prepare a company for liquidation
Once the decision to liquidate is made, good preparation shortens the process, protects employees' claims, and keeps directors on the right side of the conduct review - here's the practical checklist.
Stop, immediately
No new credit or customer deposits; no payments to favoured or personally guaranteed creditors; no asset sales or transfers - even well-intentioned ones, which become preferences and undervalue transactions with remarkable ease.
Gather
The records that drive everything: accounts and bank statements, the creditor list with amounts and any guarantees flagged, the asset register, payroll records (clean payroll is what gets staff paid in weeks), and the director's loan account position - known before the liquidator finds it.
Handle people properly
Time staff communication with your practitioner's advice - not so early it collapses the business, never so late it's cruel - and keep creditor responses honest and brief; promises the company can't keep are remembered.
Prepare yourself
Read what the liquidator will review, check your redundancy eligibility, and bring every awkward fact to the first meeting - the directors who fare best in liquidation are consistently the ones whose practitioners heard the problems from them first.
The formal steps that follow are covered in our five-step CVL guide.
Call our licensed insolvency practitioners in Manchester on 0333 023 5090 - free, confidential, and directly with an ICAEW-licensed IP.
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This page is intended for general information purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always take advice from a licensed insolvency practitioner about your specific position.