In the United Kingdom an Insolvency Practitioner (usually abbreviated as IP) is a person specialising in formal insolvency cases. More often than not, such people have an accountancy background. A few active practitioners are lawyers, but it is not necessary to be qualified as either. The term Insolvency describes a financial condition experienced by a person or business entity when his (or its) assets no longer exceed his liabilities or when the person or entity can no longer meet its debt obligations when they come due. ... Accountancy (British English) or accounting (American English) is the process of maintaining, auditing, and processing financial information for business purposes. ... In the United States, a lawyer is a person licensed by the state to advise clients in legal matters and represent them in courts of law and in other forms of dispute resolution. ...

Insolvency is a regulated profession under the Insolvency Act 1986 and anyone who wishes to practice as an IP needs to hold an Insolvency Licence. Such licences can be issued by any of the following recognised professional bodies:

• Insolvency Practitioners Association
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland
• The Law Society
• The Law Society of Northern Ireland
• The Law Society of Scotland
• The Chartered Association of Certified Accountants

Licences are now only issued upon satisfactory completion of a professional examination held by the Joint Insolvency Examination Board. Some individuals who were acting as insolvency practitioners before the profession was regulated hold licences to act as an IP directly from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA) is a professional body whose purpose is to inform and regulate insolvency practitioners (IPs) within the UK and Ireland. ... Abstract The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) is the main English accountancy body for chartered accountants and auditors, having over 126,500 members. ... The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is a cabinet position in the United Kingdom government. ...

There are currently about 1,700 Licensed Practitioners in the United Kingdom, not all of whom take appointments – many lawyers hold licences but do not use them to take appointments, preferring to advise other practitioners.

Under UK law, any of the following types of formal insolvency procedure must be dealt with by a Licensed Insolvency Practitioner:

• Bankruptcy
• Liquidations
• Individual Voluntary Arrangements
• Company Voluntary Arrangements
• Administrations
• Administrative Receiverships
• Deed of Arrangement

Notice of closure stuck on the door of a computer store the day after its parent company, Granville Technology Group Ltd, declared bankruptcy (strictly, administration - see text) in the UK. Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors. ... Liquidation, or winding up, refers to a business whose assets are converted to money in order to pay off debt. ... Individual Voluntary Arangements (IVA) are a formal alternative for individuals wishing to avoid petitioning for their own bankruptcy. ... Look up Administration on Wiktionary, the free dictionary The word administration is from the Old English administracioun, deriving from the French administration, which is itself derived from the Latin administratio: a compounding of ad (to) and ministratio (to give service). In modern usage, the word has particular meanings in particular...

External Links

• - Videos of Common Bankruptcy Questions & Answers - Streaming Media Format

• Insolvency Service Database of UK Insolvency Practitioners

• Association of Business Recovery Professionals Website - R3

• Insolvency Practitioners Association Website

• - National Debtline - Charitable Organisation Offering Bankruptcy Information & Publications

References

Insolvency Act 1986