Insolvency Service

3. Mr N complains IS unfairly started proceedings against him on 6 July 2015 to disqualify him from becoming the director of a company.

4. He says IS’s decision resulted in him being disqualified from being a company director. He says this led to the closure of his business, meaning he lost his income and his assets became less valuable. Mr S says he also had to pay £18,000 in legal fees to be reinstated as a director.

5. As an outcome to his complaint Mr S would like IS to pay compensation so he can restore his business and to cover lost profits, pension and National Insurance from the eightyear disqualification period. He would also like an apology.

6. Mr N was a company director. On 6 July 2015, IS told Mr N it had applied to court to disqualify him from holding this position. The judge held a preliminary hearing on 3 April 2017. In May, Mr N agreed to disqualification from directorship for eight years on the advice of his barrister.

9. The law says someone needs to complain to their MP within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to an MP after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so.

10. We have considered when Mr N would have been aware of the problem he is complaining about.

11. Mr N says because of what happened he has been unfairly disqualified from being a company director. He claims this led to the closure of his business and has caused significant financial impacts. As Mr N was disqualified from being a company director in May 2017 we consider he knew about the problems then.

12. We recognise his company lost money in the period after this and entered liquidation in June 2019. But we consider the date Mr N reasonably believed something went wrong was when his directorship was removed. This means he should have complained to his MP by May 2018.

13. Mr N approached his MP on 30 August 2023 following the final stage of IS’s complaint process. This is considerably outside of our time limit. We have considered the reasons for the delay.

14. Mr N told us he did not approach his MP sooner because he did not start the complaints process immediately. We have therefore looked at the reasons for this and anything else that we might consider to be a good reason for the delay.

15. We have discussed with Mr N the reasons he did not complain sooner. We have also considered the time he has taken to follow the complaints process and the barriers to complaining he told us about.

16. Mr N says IS told him he had to wait for the liquidator’s final report before complaining. He says this report was only available in September 2021 and contained important information that demonstrated IS was wrong to seek disqualification. He also said he had to complain to the Chartered Institute of Accountants before complaining to IS.

17. The IS complaints procedure does not recommend complaining to other organisations first. Further, we have seen no evidence IS made this requirement of Mr N. Therefore, we do not consider this is a reasonable explanation for the delay in starting IS’s complaints process.

18. Additionally, Mr N complained to IS 16 months after the liquidator’s report was available. Therefore, even if he did have to wait for the liquidator’s report then the subsequent delay is enough to put Mr N’s complaint outside of our time limit.

19. We understand how much this problem means to Mr N and recognise how seriously he has been affected by losing his directorship. Having considered the explanation for Mr N’s delay we cannot see a suitable reason to set our time limit to one side. Consequently, we have decided to not investigate further.

1. We have carefully considered Mr N’s complaint about the Insolvency Service (IS). We have decided the complaint falls outside of our time limit and there is no good reason to put it aside.

2. Mr N has told us what happened caused significant impacts which continue to affect his day-to-day life. We understand how stressful this must be for him and acknowledge the hardship he has experienced.