Resources
Explanations, written before you need them.
Two things here. Our own guides and tools — written for directors and individuals, free, and not gated behind a form. And a set of links to the official sources we use ourselves, so you can check anything you read here against the primary material.
Some of those links go to free advice services rather than to us. That is deliberate: if another route serves you better, we would rather you found it.
Section one
Our insolvency guides and tools
Written by us, and kept current against the legislation and official guidance. Each carries a review date. No email address required.
Company directors
Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation
The nine-step process, the two timescale questions, where directors are personally exposed, and what the conduct report actually shows.
Guide · 19 questions answered
Company directors
Company administration
The three statutory purposes, the moratorium and its exceptions, pre-packs and the connected-person rules, and how administration compares.
Guide · 30 questions answered
Company directors
Company Voluntary Arrangements
Viability, the voting thresholds and the unconnected-creditor safeguard, HMRC’s expectations, and why a proposal creates no automatic moratorium.
Guide · 31 questions answered
Company directors
Closing a solvent company
Members’ Voluntary Liquidation against a strike-off, the £25,000 threshold, the tax position, and the anti-avoidance rule that catches continuing the same trade.
Guide · 17 questions answered
Individuals
Bankruptcy
Your home and jointly owned property, income payments, pensions, which debts are released and which are not, and creditor petitions.
Guide · 35 questions answered
Individuals
Individual Voluntary Arrangements
Protocol and bespoke IVAs, the 2025 protocol’s treatment of the family home, fees and where your payments go, and what happens if it fails.
Guide · 21 questions answered
Tools
13-week cash-flow template
A spreadsheet with the formulas built in, and six steps for filling it in. The single most useful document a company under pressure can produce.
Free download · Excel, Numbers or Sheets
Tools
The decision path
Three questions that decide what happens next — including what “viable” actually means, and the four tests we apply to it.
Interactive guide
Guidance notes
Overdrawn director’s loan accounts
How money drawn over several years becomes a debt owed back to the company, and what can usually be done about it.
Guidance note · 4 minute read
Section two
Useful links and official resources
Links to GOV.UK, the Insolvency Service, our regulator and the trade body. These open in a new tab, and they are the primary sources — where anything on this site differs from them, they are right and we will fix ours.
For company directors
Director information hub
The Insolvency Service
The official starting point on directors’ duties, cash flow, record-keeping and what happens in each procedure.
Company health check
GOV.UK
Official guidance on keeping a business on track, and the signs that it is not.
Liquidation and insolvency guidance
The Insolvency Service
The detailed technical guidance on each corporate procedure in England and Wales.
Responding to a statutory demand
GOV.UK
What a statutory demand is and the options for responding to one.
Winding-up orders
GOV.UK
How a winding-up order is made, and what it means for the company.
Company Voluntary Arrangements
GOV.UK
The official overview of CVAs, including the IVA Protocol’s corporate counterpart guidance.
For individuals
Debt Relief Orders — how to get one
The Insolvency Service
Eligibility, the current debt, asset and surplus-income limits, and how to apply through an approved intermediary. Worth checking before considering an IVA or bankruptcy.
Options for dealing with your debts
GOV.UK
The official comparison of every route — DROs, IVAs, bankruptcy, debt management plans and administration orders.
Becoming bankrupt
GOV.UK
Applying for your own bankruptcy, the current fee, and what happens to your home, possessions, income and pension.
A debtor’s guide to bankruptcy
The Insolvency Service
The official plain-English guide, written for the person going through it.
IVA Protocol 2025 and standard terms
The Insolvency Service
The current protocol governing consumer IVAs, including the family-home provisions and the standard terms annexe.
Breathing Space (Debt Respite Scheme)
GOV.UK
Temporary protection from creditor action and interest while you take debt advice. Accessed through a debt adviser.
Free debt advice
MoneyHelper
Government-backed, impartial and free. If you are unsure whether you need a formal procedure at all, start here.
For employees
Redundancy payments if your employer is insolvent
GOV.UK
What you may be able to claim from the statutory scheme, and how to make a claim.
Claim for redundancy and monies owed
The Insolvency Service
The Redundancy Payments Service claim route, for arrears of wages, holiday pay, notice pay and redundancy pay.
For creditors and lenders
Creditor guides to insolvency practitioner fees
R3
The profession’s own guidance on how office-holders’ fees are approved and reported, by procedure.
Wind up a company that owes you money
GOV.UK
The petition process from the creditor’s side, including the current deposit and court fees.
Individual Insolvency Register
The Insolvency Service
Search bankruptcies, IVAs, DROs and restriction orders.
Disqualified directors register
Companies House
Search current director disqualifications.
CRG regulatory documents
Provision of regulations summary
CRG Financial Recovery
A summary of the regulatory framework under which our licensed insolvency practitioners act. Published at /provision-of-regulations-summary/ — a URL cited in our own documents, which does not change.
Practice fee recovery policy
CRG Financial Recovery
Our published policy on the recovery of fees and expenses in insolvency appointments. Published at /practice-fee-recovery-policy/ — a URL cited in our own documents, which does not change.
Privacy policy
CRG Financial Recovery
How we handle the information you give us. Published at /privacy-policy/ — a URL cited in our own documents, which does not change.
Regulation and legislation
Insolvency Practitioners Association
IPA
Our regulator. Includes the complaints route and the register of licensed practitioners.
Find an insolvency practitioner
GOV.UK
The official search for licensed practitioners — useful if you want to compare, or to check anyone advising you.
Insolvency Act 1986
legislation.gov.uk
The primary legislation, including the insolvency tests and the provisions on directors’ liability.
Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016
legislation.gov.uk
The procedural rules governing decision procedures, voting thresholds and reporting.
R3 technical library
R3
The trade body’s guidance for creditors, directors and employees across every procedure.
External links are provided for convenience. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content, and official thresholds and fees change — always check the date on the page you land on.
Not sure where to start?
Most people arrive here with one question
Usually some version of “how bad is this?” — which is worth answering properly before reading anything else. Am I insolvent? sets out the two tests and the warning signs, and includes a fifteen-question health check you can work through yourself.
Section three
News and past commentary
CRG’s news and press coverage, and some older commentary. The dates matter: the pieces below describe the position when they were written, not necessarily the position now.
News and press
CRG appointed administrators of Extrupol Packaging
February 2023
The Louth packaging company entered administration in May 2022. Links to the full report in The Business Desk.
Arabella Ranby-Gorwood profiled by Business Live
February 2023
Business Live on the second generation at the firm, and on becoming one of the youngest insolvency practitioners in the country.
Rising Star of the Year
February 2023
The Insolvency Practitioners Association’s national award, presented in London in November 2022.
Macclesfield Town Football Club sale
May 2021
CRG in the press on the sale of the club.
From the archive
Older pieces, kept for reference. Insolvency law and practice have moved on since these were written — check the date on each, and speak to us for the current position.
Repeat offenders: HMRC to make them personally liable
March 2022
On the measures allowing HMRC to hold directors personally liable where companies are repeatedly wound up owing tax.
Why dissolution doesn’t necessarily fix the problem
March 2022
Why striking a company off is not a way to walk away from its debts, and what can follow if you try.
The pre-pack regulations
March 2021
Written when the connected-party pre-pack rules were introduced. Those rules are now simply how pre-packs work.
February 2021: where are we
February 2021
Commentary written during the pandemic support measures, when the insolvency landscape looked very different.
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