Advice on closing a company after the owner dies

[MrsKCastle]

Posting on chat for traffic, in the hope that someone can help!

My father passed away a few months ago. He was the owner and sole employee of a small business, and my siblings and I have no idea what we need to do to close the company legally. The clients have already been contacted and been offered the option of transferring to a similar business, so that side is taken care of. There is a company secretary but it's very much a 'in name only' thing so they wouldn't have the first clue what needs to be done.

It's one of those things I've never even thought of before! I've been told that there are some papers that need to be filed to register the business with company house and that there could be a fine for not doing so - but are there legal implications of doing this if there is no owner any more?

Who should I contact to work out what steps to take?

You talk about company and business interchangeably, but do mention he was an employee, the company secretary etc. so I'm assuming it is actually a company and not a sole-trade.

Did the company have an accountant? It almost certainly would have done unless he was an accountant himself.
Your first step is to contact them.

In terms of ownership, the shares are now under the ownership of the Estate rather than not having an owner.

Is there any value in the company? If there is nothing to extract then you can just look at getting formalities dealt with and striking it off, but if there is a value you need to go about extracting that.

Thanks for responding. Yes, it was a company. Unfortunately he was in fact an accountant, so I can't contact them! Pretty sure there's no value in the company, so hopefully it should just be dealing with the formalities.

My suggestion was going to be the company accountants but as that is not possible, would Companies House be any help? The company must have been registered with them.

Were there any other directors? My sister and I were appointed directors to my parents company so that should they pass away we can vote to wind up the company at an extra ordinary general meeting.

I also meant to say I'm sorry for your loss.

Oh, he was an accountant - I put that in as a flippant comment, sorry!
Can you get advise from the accountant that his clients have been passed on to?

Given he was effectively selling his time the only value in the company would be likely to be;

• goodwill, but the clients are gone, so that's nil,
• any small bits of fixed assets, furniture, IT etc, so effectively valueless.
• debtors, anything the company was owed from his clients
• bank balance, this is your biggest potential for value.

Less any amounts the Company owes, there maybe be an outstanding tax return and corporation tax due.

Did he leave a will and have you applied for probate? Have you got a solicitor/lawyer involved.
I'm not sure of the technicalities, but the executors may be able to apply to Companies House for the company to be struck off.