How to check if a UK company is in financial trouble (for free)

Where can I check a UK company for free?

Two official sources cover almost everything that is publicly knowable about a UK limited company:

• Companies House: the UK registrar. Free search shows a company's filing history, accounts (and whether they're overdue), registered charges, current and resigned directors, registered office changes, and its status (active, in administration, in liquidation, or facing strike-off).
• The Gazette: the UK's official public record, in three editions (London, Edinburgh, Belfast). Insolvency events must be advertised here: winding-up petitions, administration appointments, creditors' voluntary liquidations, and notices of intended strike-off.

Both are free, official, and legally required to be accurate. Much of what you'll find on paid "company check" sites is the same records, repackaged.

What are the warning signs on Companies House?

• Overdue accounts. A private company must file accounts within nine months of its year end. Missing that deadline triggers automatic penalties. A company that accepts fines rather than filing is telling you something.
• A new charge, especially to a non-bank lender. A charge means the company has pledged assets as security. A new charge to an invoice financier or a short-term lender often means cash is tight (see our guide on what a charge means).
• Director resignations: particularly a finance director leaving, or several departures close together.
• Overdue confirmation statement: a cheap, easy filing. Missing it signals a company that has stopped doing basic housekeeping, and starts the clock towards compulsory strike-off.
• Status flags: "Active: proposal to strike off", administration, or liquidation markers mean act now, not later.

What are the limits of checking accounts?

Filed accounts are old news by design. A private company's accounts can legitimately be up to 21 months out of date on the day you read them (a 12-month year plus a 9-month filing window), and most small companies file abridged or filleted accounts with no profit and loss statement at all. A company can look solvent on paper and be unable to pay wages this month.

That's why the event-driven record matters more than the accounts: charges, notices, resignations and overdue flags appear within days of the underlying event, not a year and a half later.

Why isn't a one-off check enough?

Most businesses check a customer once (when opening the account) and never again. But insolvency is a process, not an event: the filings that precede a failure (new security, late accounts, departures, a winding-up petition in The Gazette) typically appear weeks or months before your invoices go unpaid. The information is public; the problem is that nobody has time to re-check every customer every week.

That is the gap Kestrel Alert closes: we watch the companies on your list continuously and email you a plain-English alert when one of these events is filed, with a link to the official source so you can verify it yourself.