Companies House restarts voluntary strike-off process

Companies House has announced the restart of the process for companies that have applied for voluntary strike-off, from 10 September 2020. All voluntary strike-off applications were suspended in March 2020 in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The press release published by Companies House outlines the following changes:

• When voluntary strike off action restarts from 10 September 2020, if there have been no objections to dissolution and the 2 month period from the publication of the Gazette notice has expired, the company will be struck off shortly afterwards.
• Any person with an interest in a company which is nearing strike off should register an objection to dissolution at Companies House. Where a person has already registered an objection, but the time period for that objection is due to expire, that person must register the objection again if it is still required.
• Applications for voluntary strike off from 10 July 2020 onwards are not affected by the temporary suspension because the easements for voluntary dissolution only apply to strike-off applications registered before 10 July 2020.  If there are no objections to the dissolution, the company will be struck off in around 2 months’ time.

The compulsory strike-off process remains paused. Companies House will continue to review this measure on a monthly basis and notify any changes.