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Stop The Advertisement
We can often prevent the petition from being advertised in the Gazette, which is how most banks find out about it, giving you the best chance of keeping your accounts operating while we negotiate.
If HMRC or a creditor has petitioned to wind up your company, you have days, not weeks, to act. We can help you protect your business and assets.
A Winding Up Petition is the last resort by HMRC to recoup money. If successful, it forces your business into compulsory liquidation. All your assets will be sold, and everything you have worked for will be gone.
The Hidden Danger: Frozen Accounts
Under Section 127 of the Insolvency Act 1986, any payment out of company funds after the petition is presented to court is void unless the court approves it. Once your bank learns of the petition, most often from its advertisement in The Gazette, it will normally freeze the company account to protect itself. You may then be unable to pay staff or suppliers, which can stop the business trading.
We know time is of the essence. We stop the panic and start the defence.
We can often prevent the petition from being advertised in the Gazette, which is how most banks find out about it, giving you the best chance of keeping your accounts operating while we negotiate.
Our legal team can petition the court for an adjournment, buying you valuable time to arrange finance or a CVA.
We leverage our relationships with HMRC to agree on a settlement or Time to Pay arrangement that withdraws the petition.
We act in your best interests, not the creditors'. Our advice is clear, honest, and aimed at seeing your business thrive.
From the first demand to the final hearing: where you are in the process dictates what we can do.
HMRC or a creditor serves a formal Statutory Demand for a debt of £750 or more. You have 21 days to pay, negotiate, or formally dispute. This is the most forgiving stage to be at — most of our successful interventions begin here, where a Time to Pay arrangement or CVA negotiation can stop the petition before it is ever filed.
HMRC often issues a statutory demand first, but it isn't legally required to. It can skip this step and petition the court directly, especially where it has already sent debt management and enforcement letters.
If the Statutory Demand isn't answered, the creditor can file a Winding Up Petition at the Insolvency and Companies Court. A hearing date is set, typically 6 to 8 weeks out. At this stage the petition has been filed but not yet publicly advertised, so your bank is usually not yet aware of it and your accounts normally keep operating. Acting here, before Gazette publication, is critical.
Seven business days before the hearing, the petition is advertised in The London Gazette. The advertisement does not itself freeze anything, but banks monitor the Gazette and, once they see a petition against your company, will usually freeze its accounts. The reason is Section 127 of the Insolvency Act 1986: any disposition of company property made after the petition was presented (filed at court) is void unless the court validates it, so the risk runs from the filing date, not the advertisement, and directors who keep trading risk personal liability. Once advertised, we routinely file emergency applications for Validation Orders to release funds for payroll and essential suppliers.
The judge can: grant the winding up order (appointing the Official Receiver as liquidator), adjourn (to allow further negotiation or a CVA proposal), or dismiss (where the debt is disputed on substantial grounds). Our legal partners routinely secure adjournments where there is a credible rescue plan on the table — but the plan has to be presentable to the court, which is why we begin preparing it the moment we are instructed.
If the order is granted, the Official Receiver takes control of the company. Director conduct is reported under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986. This is the outcome we work hardest to prevent, but even at this stage there are personal-liability steps directors should take immediately — see our director liabilities guide.
HMRC winding up petition volumes surged to record levels in 2025 and have remained elevated through Q1 2026. Three factors are driving the trend: HMRC's greater reliance on Direct Recovery of Debt (DRD), a power it held well before 2026 but resumed and has used far more heavily since April 2026, HMRC's wider use of bank-data matching to identify assets before filing, and a policy shift toward using winding up petitions earlier in the escalation chain rather than as a last resort. VAT arrears and PAYE arrears account for the majority of HMRC-led petitions, followed by Corporation Tax.
We are also seeing an increase in disputed petitions — where the underlying debt is genuinely challengeable. HMRC occasionally files on estimated assessments that don't reflect actual liability, and where our team can present evidence of the true figure we are often able to have the petition withdrawn entirely. If you believe HMRC's figures are wrong, the Statutory Demand stage is where to act.
The common theme across all 2026 cases: speed matters more than ever. The gap between first warning letter and Gazette publication has compressed from months to weeks in many cases. If you have received any written enforcement warning from HMRC, the safest assumption is that the timeline is already running.
Although time is critical, we are committed to keeping all viable options on the table for as long as possible. We don't force you into a corner.
By conducting a rapid analysis of your finances, we can determine if the business is viable. If it is, we fight to save it via CVA or Administration. If not, we manage the liquidation process to minimize your personal liability as a director.
