Guidance

Director information hub: Administration

If your limited company is struggling, it may be possible to go into administration.

Help us to improve the director information hub by completing a short feedback survey.

Administration

Administration protects a company from legal action and allows proposals to be put to creditors to re-structure the company.

An appointed administrator (a professional insolvency practitioner) will run the business for as long as they are appointed (normally 1 year, but this can be extended).

The insolvency practitioner will determine the best course of action for your company. This may be:

  • negotiating a Company Voluntary Arrangement with creditors
  • selling all the business or part of the business as a ‘going concern’
  • selling the company assets and then closing the company

Administration will not be a suitable for every company in financial difficulty.

More about administration

To go into administration, you need to appoint an insolvency practitioner as administrator who will oversee the process.

If a creditor holds a floating charge over the assets of the company they can also appoint an administrator.

The administrator will:

  • file notice of the administration with the court
  • write to creditors
  • publicly announce their appointment in The Gazette

The administrator has 8 weeks to provide a statement outlining their proposals to achieve the best return for creditors and must send a copy of this to creditors, employees and Companies House.

Read further guidance on administration.

Go back to the director information hub homepage.

Updates to this page

Published 3 October 2023

Sign up for emails or print this page