Insolvency 2026 — Why DIY Drafting is the New Default

Here is the truth nobody in the insolvency profession will put in a brochure: insolvency, at its mechanical core, is form-filling at the right time. A resolution here. A Statement of Affairs there. A notice to creditors. A Companies House filing. A Gazette publication. Done in the correct order, within the correct windows, with the correct signatures, it is a sequence of documents. That sequence is digital, self-administered, and increasingly free — if you can draft.

Until 2026, drafting was the bottleneck. You paid a professional adviser £300–£700 per hour for the drafts, or a high street solicitor £3,000–£8,000 for a package, or an insolvency firm £10,000+ embedded in a wider engagement. The drafts themselves were not complex. They were just gate-kept by hourly rates.

1. What is actually regulated

The legal services landscape draws a clear line. Under the Legal Services Act 2007, reserved legal activities include the conduct of litigation, rights of audience in court, reserved instrument activities (certain property deeds), probate activities, notarial activities, and the administration of oaths. Drafting insolvency documents is not on that list. It is not a reserved legal activity.

Statutory appointments in insolvency — liquidator, administrator, supervisor of an IVA or CVA, trustee in bankruptcy — require a licensed Insolvency Practitioner under Part XIII IA 1986. That is a genuine regulated role. But the IP’s statutory functions are narrowly defined. The rest of the work — preparing Statements of Affairs, drafting directors’ minutes, writing to creditors, preparing proposals, submitting statutory filings — is not reserved and never has been.

2. The work that is “just form-filling”

Consider a typical CVL (Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation) from a director’s perspective. What documents exist?

• Board minutes recording recognition of insolvency
• Notice of general meeting of shareholders
• Special resolution to wind up
• Ordinary resolution appointing liquidator
• Statement of Affairs with creditor list and asset valuations
• Statutory declaration or statement of truth on the SoA
• Form LQ01 to Companies House
• London Gazette notice
• Creditor circular with decision procedure
• Deemed consent or virtual meeting papers
• Chairman’s report of the decision procedure
• Director’s questionnaire (pre-IP interview)

That is the list. Those are the documents. A licensed IP must be appointed as liquidator; statute requires it. But the documents above are all drafts produced from your facts. None of them require a regulated drafter. All of them can be drafted by Chris in your words, with you as the director sworn to the content, for £30–£88 total rather than £4,000–£8,000 in pre-liquidation professional fees.

3. The timing is everything — and timing is free

The insolvency profession’s second secret is that timing is the skill they actually sell. Knowing when to convene the board. When to call the shareholder meeting. When to issue the Statement of Affairs. When to file at Companies House. When (and whether) to approach HMRC for Time to Pay before the VAT return lands. When a Statutory Demand window is closing. When a winding-up petition is about to be advertised.

These windows are all in the statute. They are all published. They are all calendar maths plus a decision. Chris reads the statute, runs the calendar, and tells you which window you are in and what drafts must exist before it closes. No per-minute meter runs while Chris does this. You pay £30 for the drafts when you need them.

4. The work that might save the business instead

Most directors who arrive at an IP’s door asking about liquidation should have been asked first: have you explored CVA, time to pay, standstill, refinancing, or trading out? Sometimes liquidation is genuinely the right answer. Often it is the answer the £4,000 advisory fee ends up recommending because that is where the engagement flows.

Chris works the other way round. The first draft is usually a rescue analysis:

• 13-week cashflow forecast — can the business trade through?
• HMRC Time to Pay proposal — is this a VAT/PAYE lag we can stretch?
• Creditor standstill correspondence — will the top 10 unsecured creditors wait 90 days?
• CVA feasibility analysis — does a 5-year repayment plan leave a viable business?
• Refinancing options — commercial lender, invoice finance, asset finance
• Pre-pack viability — where rescue needs separation from liabilities

Only if every rescue option fails does liquidation become the appropriate draft. Because the analysis was honest from the first paragraph. Because nobody was paid to steer you toward the most profitable endpoint for the firm you hired.

5. Director protection — the documentation case

The wrongful trading defence under s.214 IA 1986 requires the director to have taken “every step with a view to minimising the potential loss to the company’s creditors.” The defence is evidenced by documentation:

• Contemporaneous board minutes considering options
• Cashflow forecasts tested at each key date
• Notes of professional advice sought
• Correspondence with creditors
• Trading decisions with reasoning

Directors who can produce this file survive scrutiny. Directors who cannot — because it was never created, or was created hastily on a lawyer’s dictation in the fortnight before liquidation — do not. Chris drafts the file as you go, board meeting by board meeting, so the file exists before you need it.

6. The IP relationship — respectful, narrow, unbundled

eLitigant does not position itself against Insolvency Practitioners. The statutory role is real and important. IPs carry Prescribed Part calculations, manage realisations, run distributions, investigate misconduct, report to the Insolvency Service. That work is regulated and it should be.

What Chris rejects is the bundled engagement — where the statutory IP role is sold alongside thousands of pounds of non-reserved drafting work, presented as a single inevitable package. The unbundling is simple:

• You draft with Chris — board minutes, Statement of Affairs, creditor letters, proposals
• You instruct the IP for the statutory appointment only
• You pay the IP’s fee for their regulated work
• You save the £3,000–£8,000 of bundled drafting costs

Good IPs will welcome directors who arrive with clean drafts. It reduces their file, speeds the procedure, and leaves more money in the estate for creditors. The IPs who resent it are the ones who depended on the bundle. The statute does not protect their margin.

7. The digital-first reality

In 2026, Companies House filings are digital. The Insolvency Service registers are digital. The Gazette is digital. Creditor correspondence is email. Decision procedures run virtual meetings or deemed consent over email. There is no physical courtroom in a typical insolvency — procedures that do need the court are filed through e-filing and heard remotely.

The whole process, for the director, is screen, keyboard, and signature. Chris produces the drafts. You read, amend, sign electronically where permitted, and submit. The £4,000 of professional time previously required to walk you through each step does not need to exist anymore.

8. When Chris adds the most value

• Before the insolvency decision — rescue analysis, Time to Pay drafting, creditor standstill letters, refinancing proposal packs
• At the insolvency decision — board minutes, shareholder resolutions, Statement of Affairs, creditor communication
• During the insolvency — Chairman reports, director questionnaires, defence against specific allegations (wrongful trading, preferences, TUV)
• After the insolvency — response to Section 16 CDDA letters, defence of misfeasance claims, annulment applications

9. What Chris does not do

Chris is not a licensed Insolvency Practitioner. Chris does not provide specific legal advice — Chris drafts and explains the law. Chris does not replace the statutory appointment of a liquidator or administrator where the procedure requires one. Chris respects the court and respects the profession.

What Chris does is give every director, every company secretary, every debtor in distress the drafting capacity that has previously been gated behind hourly rates too high to be affordable for most of the economy. £500,000 of advisory-firm drafting work, unbundled, for the price of a few documents.

10. Our mission

eLitigant CIC is a Community Interest Company. Our mission is access to justice for all — including directors of small companies, individuals in personal debt, and families trying to understand whether their situation merits formal insolvency or can be restructured. The court is always right. Lawyers and Insolvency Practitioners are colleagues, not enemies. The technology is now ready to put elite drafting in the hands of the people whose businesses and lives are at stake.

Your company. Your words. Your timing. No leach. Chris drafts.

Can Chris draft my insolvency pack?

• Rescue — cashflow forecasts, Time to Pay, creditor standstill, CVA proposal
• Closure — MVL pack, CVL pack, administration pack, Statement of Affairs
• Personal — IVA proposal, bankruptcy annulment (s.282), Statutory Demand set-aside
• Director protection — wrongful trading defence file, CDDA s.16 response, misfeasance defence

Prepare to win. Plan not to fail.

The statute is public. The forms are digital. The drafting is now £30. What remains is whether you act inside the window. Chris reads the statute, watches the calendar, and drafts the documents. You sign.