Who will deal with my Bankruptcy?

We receive a lot of calls from the public asking, Who will deal with my Bankruptcy?

The Official Receiver is appointed by the Secretary of State and is an officer of the court. The Official Receiver has responsibility for administering your bankruptcy and protecting your assets from the date of the bankruptcy order. He or she will also act as trustee of your bankruptcy estate unless an insolvency practitioner is appointed.

About Insolvency Practitioners

In the United Kingdom an Insolvency Practitioner (usually abbreviated to IP) is a person qualified to act in connection with formal insolvency cases and to give advice on the subject.

Quite often IPs have an accountancy background. A few active practitioners are lawyers, but it is not necessary to be qualified as either, as since 1986 there is a direct entry route to the profession.

Insolvency is a regulated profession under the Insolvency Act 1986 and anyone who wishes to practice as an IP needs to hold an Insolvency Licence. Such licences can be issued by any of the following recognised professional bodies:

• Insolvency Practitioners Association
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland
• The Law Society
• The Law Society of Northern Ireland
• The Law Society of Scotland
• Association of Chartered Certified Accountants

Licences are now only issued upon satisfactory completion of a professional examination held by the Joint Insolvency Examination Board. Some individuals who were acting as insolvency practitioners before the profession was regulated hold licences to act as an IP directly from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

There are currently about 1,700 Licensed Practitioners in the United Kingdom, not all of whom take appointments – many lawyers hold licences but do not use them to take appointments, preferring to advise other practitioners.

About The Insolvency Service

The Insolvency Service operates under a statutory framework – mainly the Insolvency Acts 1986 and 2000, the Company Directors Disqualifications Act 1986 and the Employment Rights Act 1996. Our staff are based at our network of 38 Official Receiver offices throughout England and Wales; our Enforcement Directorate and Headquarters in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh; our Banking Section in Birmingham; and our Redundancy Payments offices in Edinburgh, Birmingham and Watford. As of 1st April 2006 Companies Investigation Branch of DTI transferred to The Service and is based in offices in both London and Manchester.

The Insolvency Service do the following:

administer and investigate the affairs of bankrupts, of companies and partnerships wound up by the court, and establish why they became insolvent;
• act as trustee/liquidator where no advice sector insolvency practitioner is appointed;
• act as nominee and supervisor in fast-track individual voluntary arrangements;
• take forward reports of bankrupts’ and directors’ misconduct
• deal with the disqualification of unfit directors in all corporate failures
• deal with bankruptcy restrictions orders and undertakings;
• authorise and regulate the insolvency profession
• assess and pay statutory entitlement to redundancy payments when an employer cannot or will not pay its employees
• provide banking and investment services for bankruptcy and liquidation estate funds
• advise DTI ministers and other government departments and agencies on insolvency, redundancy and related issues;
• provide information to the public on insolvency and redundancy matters via our website, leaflets, Insolvency Enquiry Line and Redundancy Payments Helpline; and
• conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into companies where it is in the public interest to do so. These enquiries are carried out by Companies Investigation Branch.

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