A Bankruptcy Lawyer’s Blog

Recession and Insolvency Fears – The Solicitors Statistics

As we are apparently heading out of a recession or, in my opinion, are through the initial worries, panics and fears a recession brings, I thought it apt to catch up on how the business world has fared so far through this stormy weather. I have been speaking to a solicitors Bournemouth about the problems individuals and businesses face and what they can do about it.

Insolvency rates can be seen as a clear indicator to how businesses are faring and on August 7th of this year stats on insolvency were released by the Insolvency Service. As you can imagine, at this point, the full effect of the recession was upon us and what was found is that insolvency levels for both businesses and individuals has indeed gone up so far.

One of the main finds was that individual insolvencies have risen dramatically and will continue to follow this trend. Also for the first time in these sorts of statistics DRO’s (Debt Relief Orders) were included in the stats.

For those of you who don’t know what these are, they are a type of insolvency for people who have a certain level of debt and are unable to pay this back easily due to the fact they have little disposable income and no assets to pitch this debt against. The DRO means no court appearance is needed and that less-complicated insolvency issues can be settled via fast-track means.

Anyway, back to the statistics; the findings were as follows:

� The 2nd Quarter of ’09 found over 5,000 compulsory liquidations and creditors’ voluntary liquidations in England and Wales.

� Almost a 40% increase when comparing the levels to the same time last year.

This was almost a 3% on the previous quarter.

Breaking this down further:

� Almost 1,500 compulsory liquidations (down by almost 7% on the previous quarter, but 8.7% comparing to the same quarter in 2008).

� Almost 3,600 creditors voluntary liquidations (up by 7.4% on the previous quarter and almost a massive 60% up on the same quarter in 2008)

As well as the liquidations, the following stats were found on corporate insolvencies:

� The 2nd Quarter of ’09 found over 1,500 other corporate insolvency cases.

� This can be broken down in to around 350 receiverships, 1,000 administrations and 160 company voluntary arrangements.

� Almost an increase of a 1/4 when comparing the levels to the same time last year.

As you can see, as of August this year, these figures are looking pretty bleak, but time will see whether these figures pick up or whether things do in fact pick, as the media has been telling us it has.

Obviously, insolvency is no joke and I would strongly recommend seeking professional advice as I did from Law Firms in Bournemouth and solicitors Dorset. You will find the advice given in invaluable and if you don’t, you could find out you end up losing out on a whole lot more!

If you need help on insolvency, go to a solicitors Dorset or a solicitors Bournemouth at Coles Miller.