What "Active: proposal to strike off" means when a customer shows it on Companies House

What does "Active: proposal to strike off" mean?

It is a Companies House status with two parts. "Active" means the company has not been dissolved: it still exists, can still trade, and can still be sued. "Proposal to strike off" means the registrar has published a notice in The Gazette that it intends to strike the company's name off the register. When the notice period runs out without an objection, Companies House publishes a second notice and the company is dissolved on the day that second notice appears.

If you are a director of the company, the status usually means your own strike-off application is in progress, or that filings are overdue and the registrar has started proceedings. The rest of this guide is written for the other reader: a supplier, landlord or contractor who has found this status against a customer that owes them money.

Strike-off is not an insolvency procedure. Nobody is appointed to collect in assets and pay creditors. If the company is dissolved while it owes you money, the debt does not get paid as part of the process; any assets the company still has pass to the Crown as bona vacantia (ownerless property), and you are left applying to court to have the company restored before you can pursue it. That is why the two-month window matters.

What is a first Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off, and how is a voluntary DS01 strike-off different?

The same status covers two different routes, and the filing history tells you which one you are looking at.

• Compulsory strike-off (filing history line: "First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off"). Companies House starts this when it has reasonable cause to believe the company is not carrying on business or in operation: typically because accounts or a confirmation statement were not filed, or because the company has no directors. Under section 1000 of the Companies Act 2006 the registrar first writes to the company; if there is no reply within 14 days it writes again; if there is still no reply within 14 days of the second letter, it may publish the Gazette notice. A company on this route has, at best, stopped doing its paperwork and, at worst, been abandoned by its directors.
• Voluntary strike-off (filing history line: "First Gazette notice for voluntary strike-off", preceded by an "Application to strike the company off the register", form DS01). The directors have applied to close the company under section 1003 of the Act. To apply, the company must not have traded or sold stock in the last three months, must not be threatened with liquidation, and must have no agreement with creditors such as a company voluntary arrangement. The directors must send a copy of the application to every creditor within seven days of making it, and failing to do so is an offence. If you are a creditor and never received a copy, that is itself worth mentioning in your objection.

The rules in the Companies Act apply across the United Kingdom. What differs is the Gazette edition: the notice for a company registered in England and Wales is published in The London Gazette, for a company registered in Scotland in The Edinburgh Gazette, and for a company registered in Northern Ireland in The Belfast Gazette. All three are searchable on the same website.

How long does a proposal to strike off take?

1. Day 0: first Gazette notice. The notice is published and a copy is placed on the company's filing history at Companies House. The status changes to "Active: proposal to strike off". The notice states the earliest date the company can be struck off.
2. Two months. The registrar cannot strike the company off until at least two months have passed from the date of the notice. (A shorter 28-day period applies only where a company was registered on a false basis.) Treat the date in the notice as the deadline: once it has passed, the registrar can strike the company off.
3. Objection cut-off: two weeks before that date. Companies House asks for objections to arrive at least two weeks before the strike-off date given in the notice. So a creditor has roughly six weeks from first publication to act safely.
4. Final Gazette notice and dissolution. If no objection is accepted, Companies House publishes a second notice and the company is dissolved on the date that notice is published. The status becomes "Dissolved".

If an objection is accepted, the strike-off is suspended: the company will not be struck off for another six months, and the filing history records that the strike-off action has been suspended or discontinued. Companies House can extend that if you show progress, for example that you have started legal action to recover the debt, but repeating the same demand is unlikely to buy more time.

Who can object to a company being struck off, and how?

Any interested party can object: Companies House names shareholders, employees and creditors, and a supplier owed money is a creditor. You can only object once the first notice has been published in The Gazette, and the objection must arrive before the company is struck off, at least two weeks before the date in the notice.

The route is the gov.uk service Object to a limited company being struck off. Companies House describes the online service as the quickest and safest way to object; email and post are kept for people who cannot use it. You need:

• a Companies House account (you can create one before you start) and the company's number;
• evidence that the company owes you money, such as invoices or statements. The documents must be less than six months old, must show the company's full name including the "Limited" or "Ltd" ending, and must be images, spreadsheets, Word documents or PDFs under 4MB each.

Companies House tells you whether the objection succeeded. A successful objection stops the dissolution for six months. It does not get you paid: it keeps the company on the register so that you can chase, sue or petition it while it still exists. Use the time. A company on the compulsory route has often been walked away from, and on the voluntary route the directors want it closed, so neither will volunteer to pay. Send a formal demand, consider a claim or a statutory demand, and if the sums justify it ask a solicitor about a winding-up petition, which puts a liquidator in charge of the company's assets rather than letting them pass to the Crown.

How do I check today whether a company is being struck off?

Two free, official checks, and they take five minutes:

1. Companies House. Search the company on Find and update company information. The status line at the top of the overview shows "Active", "Active: proposal to strike off" or "Dissolved". The filing history shows the Gazette notices by name ("First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off", "Final Gazette dissolved via compulsory strike-off", and the voluntary equivalents) and any DS01 application or discontinuation. The overview also shows whether accounts or the confirmation statement are overdue, which is the usual trigger for the compulsory route (see our guide on overdue accounts).
2. The Gazette. Search The Gazette's notices by company name and filter the notice type to "Companies removed from register". The notice itself carries the date, which is what the objection deadline runs from. Choose the London, Edinburgh or Belfast edition to match where the company is registered, or leave it on all three.

Check the number, not just the name. Companies with near-identical names are common, and an objection or a demand sent about the wrong company is wasted time you do not have.

How do I get an email when a company I trade with is being struck off?

A manual check only works if you happen to look during the window. Two things will email you instead.

Companies House Follow. Sign in to Find and update company information, search for the company, select it and choose "Follow this company". Companies House then emails you when a filing is accepted on that company's record, and it states that this includes a proposal to remove the company from the register. Follow is free and official, and for one or two companies it does the job. Its limits for a business with a ledger: you follow companies one at a time by searching for each, Companies House describes no way to upload a list, you get one email per filing with no reading of what it means, it does not watch The Gazette itself (so a winding-up petition or other insolvency notice that has not yet reached the Companies House record is not covered), and it tells you nothing about a company you did not think to follow.

Kestrel Alert. You add the companies you give credit to and we check each one against Companies House every hour. When a first Gazette notice for strike-off, a DS01 application or a final dissolution notice reaches a watched company's record, we email you a plain-English alert with a link to the filing, usually within the hour, so you know the two-month clock has started on the day it starts. The same watch covers the signals that tend to come first (overdue accounts, a new charge, a director leaving) and the ones that come after, including the insolvency notices we read from all three Gazette editions every night. Every account can watch three companies free, so you can watch the customer you are worried about today without a card.

What if the company has already been struck off?

Once the status says "Dissolved", the company no longer exists in law. You cannot sue it, its bank account is frozen, and whatever it still owned has passed to the Crown as bona vacantia. To pursue the debt you will normally need the company restored to the register first.

• Administrative restoration (an application to Companies House, no court) is only open to a former director or member of the company, and not at all where the directors applied to strike it off voluntarily. A creditor cannot use it.
• Restoration by court order is the creditor's route. In England and Wales you apply with a Part 8 claim form (N208) to the Companies Court in London, a district registry, or a county court that has authority to wind up the company, with a witness statement and the court fee (£326 at the date of writing), and serve the Registrar of Companies and the Treasury Solicitor (or, for some companies, the solicitor to the Duchy of Lancaster or of Cornwall). In Scotland the petition goes to the Court of Session, or to the sheriff court where the registered office is if the paid-up capital is under £120,000. In Northern Ireland the originating summons and affidavit must be served on the Registrar of Companies and the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast at least 14 days before any court date. The application can generally be made within six years of dissolution. Once restored, the company is treated as if it had never been dissolved.

Restoration costs a court fee, can leave you paying the registrar's costs too, and only puts you back where you were before the notice, facing a company that still has not paid. An objection inside the two-month window is free and takes a few minutes. The difference between the two is simply whether you heard about the first notice in time, which is the problem a standing watch solves.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Whether to object, restore or petition depends on the size of the debt and what the company still owns, so for a significant sum speak to a solicitor or insolvency practitioner.