Acting for an office holder on an out of time fee approval application

We have recently successfully acted for an office holder on an out of time fee approval application.

There were no funds in the estate and at the expiry of 18 month deadline to bring an application to fix the Liquidator’s remuneration there was no certainty as to whether any realisations would be made in the liquidation. HMRC was the sole creditor and it confirmed that its policy was to take a neutral stance unless there was an active compliance investigation, or there was a prospect of a significant dividend for HMRC and this case did not fall in any of these categories. Any application to fix remuneration at that stage would have resulted in additional costs where any recoveries were highly speculative.  

After the 18 month point, the Liquidator entered into a settlement with the director and instructed us to make an application to Court for fee approval. We prepared an application explaining the position and asking for permission to make an application after the 18 month period. As to the delay, the Court found that in this case it was a formal defect which was capable of being cured under rule 12.64 of the Insolvency Rules 2016 and therefore (1) granted permission to apply out of time and (2) approve pre and post-appointment remuneration of the Liquidator.

For further details on our offering in respect of fee approval or to recover bounce back loans, please contact a member of our Restructuring & Insolvency team who will be happy to discuss this with you.