Winding up Petition
A Winding up Petition is an official legal document issued by a creditor and put forward to the court. It asks the court to impose a Winding up Order forcing a company to cease trading and ultimately resulting in the company entering Compulsory Liquidation.
If your business fails to pay a debt following a statutory demand or CCJ and its debts exceed £750, a creditor may then choose to issue a Winding up Petition. This action is normally taken when all other avenues to recover a debt have been exhausted.
There are a number of procedures which need to be followed when a creditor decides to issue a petition against you, including serving a copy of the petition at your registered office once it has been issued and subsequently advertising the petition in the London Gazette.
Once the petition is advertised, it will alert your bank and other creditors and this will ordinarily lead to the bank freezing the company accounts. This may cause serious complications and lead to you having to cease trading.
Other creditors may look to join the petition and you should consider the reputational damage the advertisement may have on any plans for ongoing trade.
There are a number of ways in which we can help if you have received or been informed of a winding up petition and you are unable to pay the debt immediately.
We can assist with the following:
✓ Seek an adjournment for you to pay the debt owed.
✓ Defend the petition at Court on the basis that the debt isn’t actually owed or is partly disputed.
✓ Negotiate with the petitioning creditor to withdraw the petition.
✓ Place the company into Administration.
✓ Propose a CVA to the company’s creditors.
✓ Place the company into a Creditors Voluntary Liquidation (CVL) before the court hearing.
