Since Gareth posted the two articles about the filing of Form 600 in liquidations that follow on from administrations and final progress reports in liquidations, we have received evidence of inconsistent treatment by Companies House in both situations. We have seen letters rejecting form 600 in ADM/CVL conversions, contrary to the law and the Insolvency Service’s view and we have seen examples of final receipts and payments accounts being accepted without accompanying progress reports which directly contradict letters that other IPs have received demanding (re-dated) progress reports before the receipts and payments account would be accepted for filing.
On a similar point of inconsistency, we have recently seen Companies House reject the notice of result of a meeting to approve an administrator’s proposals. Their reason for rejecting the filing was that there was no copy of the proposals attached. The proposals had already been sent to Companies House before the meeting as required by paragraph 49(4) and (5). The only time that there has to be a set of proposals attached to the result notice is when sending it to creditors who have not previously had a copy (rule 2.46(b)). Accordingly, someone appears to have misinterpreted the requirements.
It must be time for the Insolvency Service and Companies House to get together and agree a consistent approach. IPs have enough problems with the existing regulation without incurring additional cost dealing with uncertain treatment of routine paperwork.
As a simple solution, we recommend that representatives of Companies House and the Insolvency Service meet to agree the correct approach to these documents and disseminate their agreed approach via Dear IP and internal desk instructions at Companies House. That way, IPs will know what they should send in for filing and Companies House staff will have clear instructions to ensure that papers are accepted and filed in a consistent fashion. The benefits for creditors are twofold, in that those few who access the Companies House information will find consistent evidence and the costs of proceedings will be reduced because IPs will not have to re-work and re-submit forms.
