1. Confirm it from the notice
Every UK administration is published in The Gazette as a notice of the administrator's appointment, with the administrator's name and contact details. Check your supplier by name or number to see the notice and its date. Administration is a rescue procedure, not a closure: many businesses keep trading through it, or are sold on.
2. Will they keep supplying you?
The administrator now runs the company and decides which contracts to keep. A supplier that is worth selling as a going concern usually keeps trading, because its customers are part of what it is worth. Ask the administrator directly whether your orders will be fulfilled and on what terms, and get the answer in writing.
Within eight weeks the administrator sends creditors their proposals for the company: a sale, a rescue, or a liquidation. That document tells you how long supply is likely to last.
3. Can you end the contract?
Usually yes, on the terms in your contract. The 2020 rule that stops suppliers ending a contract because their customer became insolvent (section 233B of the Insolvency Act 1986) protects supplies to the insolvent company. It does not stop you, the customer of an insolvent supplier, using a termination right your contract gives you.
What administration does stop is legal action against the company. While the moratorium lasts you cannot sue the supplier, enforce a judgment or repossess anything from it without the administrator's consent or the court's permission. Ending the contract and taking your business elsewhere is not affected. If you are unsure whether your contract allows it, ask a solicitor before you send a notice.
4. Deposits and prepayments
Money you paid for goods or services you have not received is a claim in the administration. You are an unsecured creditor for it, and unsecured creditors are paid last, after the costs of the administration, secured lenders and preferential creditors. Submit your claim to the administrator with the order, the invoice and proof of payment.
If you paid by card, ask your card provider whether a chargeback is possible. That is often the faster route to the money than the administration.
5. Goods you paid for, warranties and anything held for you
- Goods set aside for you: if specific goods were identified as yours and your contract says ownership passed to you, ask the administrator to release them. If ownership had not passed, what you paid is an unsecured claim.
- Your property at their premises: tooling, materials or stock you own that the supplier holds. Write to the administrator with proof of ownership. The moratorium means you need their consent to collect it.
- Warranties and guarantees: a warranty claim against the company becomes an unsecured claim. A buyer of the business only takes on old warranties if it agrees to.
- Software and data: if you rely on the supplier's software, check whether you have a source code escrow agreement and what triggers a release, and get a copy of your data while the systems are still running.
6. If the business is sold in a pre-pack
A pre-pack is a sale of the business agreed before the administrator is appointed and completed straight after. The buyer is a different company, often with a similar name and sometimes run by the same people. Your contract stays with the old company in administration unless it is transferred to the buyer with your agreement, so the buyer does not have to honour your old orders, deposits or warranties. Since 2021, a sale to people connected to the old company in the first eight weeks needs either creditor approval or an independent evaluator's report, and the administrator must explain the sale to creditors.
7. Line up a second source now
Even a supplier that comes through administration is a risk for the months it lasts. Find a backup supplier for anything you cannot do without, before you need it, and check the backup the same way. A supplier's own suppliers often stop extending credit the day the notice appears, which is when deliveries start to slip.
8. Hear about the next one the day it happens
Most customers find out a supplier is in administration when an order does not arrive. The appointment is published in The Gazette days before that, sometimes after a winding-up petition that was public weeks earlier. With insolvency alerts on the suppliers you depend on, you get an email and a webhook the day a petition, administration or liquidation notice names one of them, with a link to the notice itself.
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.