A first Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off is Companies House saying it plans to remove a company from the register and dissolve it. It is not an insolvency, but if the company owes you money it is a deadline: once the company is dissolved, it can no longer pay you or be sued, and its remaining assets pass to the Crown.
What the notice means
Companies House can strike a company off when it has reasonable cause to believe the company is no longer carrying on business (section 1000 of the Companies Act 2006). In practice that belief usually starts with missing filings: overdue accounts or a confirmation statement, and letters from Companies House that go unanswered.
Before the notice, Companies House writes to the company twice, each time allowing 14 days for an answer. If none comes, it publishes the first notice in The Gazette. The notice says the company will be struck off at the end of two months unless cause is shown why it should not be. The company's status on the register changes to show a proposal to strike it off.
The same kind of notice is published when the directors apply to close the company themselves (voluntary strike-off). For a creditor the next steps are the same.
What happens next
- The two months run. The company can still file what is missing, and a creditor can object.
- The company is struck off. When the period ends with no cause shown, Companies House strikes the name off the register.
- A final notice is published. Companies House publishes a second Gazette notice that the company has been struck off, and the company is dissolved on that publication.
- Its assets go to the Crown. Anything the company still owned on the day it was dissolved becomes the Crown's property (bona vacantia, section 1012).
If the company owes you money: object before the date
A creditor can object to the strike-off through the Companies House objection service. You need a Companies House account, the company number, and evidence for your objection, such as invoices showing the company owes you money. The documents should be less than six months old and show the company's full name, including "Limited" or "Ltd".
Object before the strike-off date given in the notice. An objection by email or post has to arrive at least two weeks before that date. A valid objection puts the strike-off on hold, which keeps the company on the register while you pursue the debt, by agreement with the company or by formal action such as a winding-up petition.
Use the time. An objection gives you a window to collect; it does not collect the debt for you.
If the company is already dissolved
A dissolved company cannot be sued or pay a debt. To recover what you are owed, the company first has to be restored to the register. A creditor of the company at the time it was struck off can apply to the court for that (section 1029), and the application generally has to be made within six years of the dissolution (section 1030). A restored company is treated as if it had never been dissolved, so its assets come back to it and your claim can go ahead. Court restoration costs money and time, so weigh it against the size of the debt and what the company still owns.
How it relates to insolvency
A strike-off is not an insolvency procedure, and no insolvency practitioner is appointed. That is the difference that matters to a creditor: in a liquidation someone collects the assets and pays creditors in a set order; in a strike-off nobody does, unless a creditor acts. A company that cannot pay its debts can still be struck off for not filing, which is why the notice is worth reading as a warning sign about a customer.
Hear about it before the two months are gone
Most creditors find out a customer was struck off when a payment never comes and the company has already been dissolved. For every UK company you watch, InsolvencyRadar re-reads Companies House at least weekly and sends a warning when a strike-off is proposed or the accounts go overdue, alongside the insolvency alerts for petitions, administrations and liquidations. You can also check a company for an insolvency notice for free.
General information about the law of England and Wales, not legal advice. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own rules for some of these steps.