where do i get a ds01 form?

If you are a company director looking to close a limited company, you might be considering striking off, or dissolving the company.

This can be a good option for certain businesses, however it is not a route that any business can take.

To help establish whether this is the best way forward for you, in this guide Clarke Bell outlines what the process involves, who can take this route and how to use form DS01 to strike off a company in 2022.

The dissolution process marks the legal end of a limited company.

This is usually a voluntary process that is initiated by the company director when they have chosen that the time is right. Once the process has been concluded, the company will be struck-off the Companies House Register.

However, the process can be involuntary and can be forced onto a company. This will usually occur where the company does not have a director in place or has failed to file annual returns or accounts.

The short answer is no, a company must meet certain criteria in order to be dissolved.

Firstly, the company must not have had a change of name in the last 3 months. Secondly, it must not have sold any stock or traded in the last 3 months.

A company must be solvent in order to be dissolved. This means that it must not be faced with liquidation and must not have outstanding liabilities and debts that need to be dealt with.

Finally, the company must not have any ongoing insolvency measures in place such as a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA.)

A company that meets the outlined criteria is able to be dissolved. A company that has assets and liabilities that need to first be dealt with must close in a different way, however, which we will discuss more about later in this guide.

There are a number of things a company director must take care of before applying to have the company dissolved.

These include:

This is a good route for company directors that are looking to enter into retirement and do not wish to appoint a new director. This is also a good option for companies that have never traded, or for directors that no longer have a use for the company.

To dissolve a company, the director must complete and return form DS01. This form is available to download here.

This will need to be filled out and returned to Companies House.

To do this, you will simply need the company number, the company name, the director’s signature and the name, address and phone number of a contact for Companies House should they have any queries about the application.

Where you return form DS01 will depend on where the company was registered.

For English and Welsh registered companies the DS01 form must be returned to Companies House Cardiff. Forms for companies registered in Scotland should be returned to Companies House in Edinburgh. Whereas forms for companies registered in Northern Ireland must be returned to Companies House Belfast.

This form cannot currently be completed online, and must instead be posted to the correct address.

Once the DS01 form has been submitted, it will usually take around 3 months for the process to be completed and the company to be struck-off.

It costs just £10 to strike off a company. Which can be paid via cheque or postal order to Companies House. This should be sent alongside the completed DS01 form.

Once the DS01 form has been sent to Companies House, the director has 7 days in which to send a copy of the form to any interested parties. This includes company shareholders, creditors, any employees, any directors that did not sign the original form and any managers or trustees of a pension fund.

As we mentioned earlier, this is an option available only to companies that do not have assets and liabilities that must be dealt with.

However, a company that does have outstanding debts and other liabilities will need to close through different means, namely liquidation.

Liquidation is a way to close a company that extracts its assets. Selling them in order to realise money that can be used to pay off any outstanding debts or redistributing money to the shareholders.

This is a formal insolvency procedure that must be carried out by a licensed Insolvency Practitioner. It is the more common way to close a company where the business has been recently trading.

There are two types of voluntary liquidation – Members Voluntary Liquidation (MVL) and Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation (CVL)

These are both forms of voluntary liquidation, however there is a third type of liquidation that is not voluntary, namely compulsory liquidation.

Just as it sounds, this is when a company is forced into liquidation by the courts. This usually occurs when creditors are owed money by the company and therefore issue a winding-up petition to the court to get back what they are owed. Creditors will usually do this as a last resort if other means of gathering the payment have failed.

Whether you are looking to dissolve your company in 2022, or you think liquidation would be the better way to close your company, Clarke Bell can help.

To see what we can do for you, why not get in touch with one of our friendly team members today.

A DS01 form is used to formally dissolve a limited company and remove its name from the Companies House register, which means it will no longer legally exist.

This form must be signed by a majority of a company’s directors, and you should deal with any assets of the company before applying (i.e., close bank accounts and transfer domain names).

An essential part of the dissolution process is sending the DS01 form to anyone interested in the company within seven days of the form being sent to Companies House.

These potentially interested parties could include creditors, employees, pension scheme administrators, shareholders, suppliers, and directors who didn’t sign the form.

You can download and print off the DS01 form online from https://www.gov.uk/ and then post it back.

The correct address depends on where the company was initially registered, it is easy to check online, but it will either be:

Cardiff  – The Registrar of Companies, Companies House, Crown Way, Cardiff, Wales, CF14 3UZ).

Belfast – The Registrar of Companies, Companies House, Second Floor, The Linenhall, 32-38 Linenhall Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT2 8BG).

Edinburgh – The Registrar of Companies, Companies House, Fourth Floor, Edinburgh Quay 2, 139 Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH3 9FF).

The fee for company dissolution is £10, which should be paid by a postal order or cheque.

It’s worth noting that you can’t pay using a cheque from an account that belongs to the company you’re planning to strike off.

You’ll receive a letter informing you if you’ve filled in the form correctly.

If you have, your request for the company to be struck off will be published as a notice in your local Gazette. Either London, Belfast, or Edinburgh, depending on where your company was initially registered.

If there are no objections, the company will be struck off the register once the two months mentioned in the notice have passed.

A second notice will then be published in the Gazette, meaning the company no longer legally exists (i.e., it has been “dissolved”).

We hope this online article helps you to understand this topic better.

You might also like to read this post about how close a limited company.

Or this one about how to dissolve a limited company.

If you are looking to close your limited company you have various ways of doing this depending on the position your business is in. Your options are different if your company is solvent compared to those open to you if your business is struggling to pay its creditors.

The ideal way of closing down an insolvent company is through a formal liquidation process known as a Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation (CVL). However, you may have heard that applying to dissolve – or strike off – your company is a quicker and cheaper way to achieve the same end result. This is not strictly true. Although striking off your company at Companies House is appropriate for some, for others this is not the best way of achieving closure.

A DS01 is the form you will have to submit if you want to apply to dissolve your limited company. The application form can be obtained from Companies House, filled in by hand, and posted. You can also complete this process entirely online through the Companies House website.

If applying via post, the completed DS01 form must be signed by a majority of directors and sent to Companies House accompanied with a cheque for the appropriate fee which is currently £8. The same fee applies for online applications and payment will need to be made when you submit the application form. If your company has two directors then both must sign the form in order for it to be accepted. Within seven days of sending the DS01 to Companies House you must also send a copy to any shareholders, creditors, and employees, as well as any directors who did not sign the form.

Once the DS01 application has been processed, an official notice detailing your intention to strike off your company will be posted in the Gazette (either London, Edinburgh, or Belfast depending on where the company was originally incorporated) inviting any interested parties to make Companies House aware of any reason why your company should not be struck off the register. Should no objections be received in the two months following this notice, the company will be removed from the Companies House register, a second notice will be published in the Gazette, and the company will be dissolved and will cease to exist as a legal entity.

When your strike off application is advertised, anyone can submit an objection. However, only those who can prove there is a valid reason for this will be upheld; should this happen your application will be suspended. By far and away the most common reason why a strike off application would be objected to is because the company has outstanding creditors who have lodged a complaint.

The reason for this is that once a company is dissolved, it no longer exists, meaning creditors would not be able to chase for any outstanding debts. Therefore it is in your creditors’ interests that your company remains active and on the register so that they can continue to pursue for repayment. If your strike off application is suspended then you will have to start the process again or consider entering into a formal liquidation process instead.

Quite simply, no. Dissolving a company is an informal way of closing down an unwanted business which is not currently trading. A CVL on the other hand, is a process which is used to bring a formal end to a company which is insolvent and unable to pay back the money it owes. A CVL is administered by a licensed insolvency practitioner who will take control of the company and its affairs, liaise with creditors on your behalf, and ensure the company is closed in the correct manner.

When a company is dissolved using the DS01 form, there is the possibility that the company could be restored to the register at any point should an outstanding creditor petition for this. If the company is restored in this way then it will return to the register along with any debts it had prior to being dissolved.

It is likely you are already aware that upon the closure of your company, any employees you have will be entitled to make a claim for redundancy, subject to them meeting the qualifying criteria. However, as directors are also often classed as employees of the business, should the company become insolvent and enter liquidation, directors are often entitled to claim redundancy pay just like any other member of staff.

If the company is unable to meet the redundancy payments owed to staff (including its directors), then an application can be made to the Redundancy Payments Service for government-funded redundancy pay. Money will be taken from the National Insurance Fund (NIF) and used to pay employees what they are owed.

It is important to note that directors will only be entitled to redundancy pay if their company is closed down through a formal liquidation procedure such as a CVL. If the company is dissolved using the DS01 form, directors forgo their right to claim redundancy and other statutory entitlements.

Furthermore, opting to dissolve a company rather than place it into liquidation means your employees will be forced to go through a tribunal in order to receive their statutory redundancy entitlements; this can be a lengthy and stressful process. Therefore, if either yourself, your co-directors, or your staff are likely to be eligible for redundancy, you should consider how the method you use to close down the company will affect their ability to claim redundancy pay.

There are various reasons why you may be looking to cancel your strike off application once you have submitted it. This could be by choice, but there are also a number of reasons why you may be required to withdraw your application too.

Your strike off application must be cancelled if your company resumes trading, changes its name, or partakes in any other activity unless necessary to complete the closure of the business. You will also need to halt the strike off if your company has formal insolvency proceedings started against it.

Alternatively, you may voluntarily decide to stop the strike off if you decide you would like to resume trading, or alternatively if you feel you would prefer to close your company by entering into a formal insolvency process.

Regardless of the reasons why you want to withdraw your strike off application, this is done by completing a DS02 form. This process can be completed online which is the quickest and easiest way to cancel the application. Please note you will need to lodge the DS02 form before your company is struck off; this method is not suitable for restoring your company to the register once it has already been dissolved, therefore you need to act fast if you are having second thoughts about dissolving your company.