How to check if someone is bankrupt or a company is in liquidation

Insolvency status is the check that changes what you are allowed to do next. Every other finding in a recovery file informs strategy. This one can remove the strategy altogether, so it belongs at the front of the process rather than at the end of it.

New Zealand keeps two separate public records for two separate things. Individuals appear on the insolvency register maintained by the Insolvency and Trustee Service. Companies show their status on the Companies Register, together with appointment documents and liquidator reports.

Personal insolvency: three procedures, three meanings

Bankruptcy

Adjudication vests the bankrupt's property in the Official Assignee. Enforcement by unsecured creditors stops and claims are proved in the bankruptcy instead. The default term is three years, subject to objection and extension, and restrictions apply during it, including on managing a business and on obtaining credit above a threshold without disclosure. The public record remains searchable after discharge, which matters for due diligence long after recovery has ended.

No Asset Procedure

The NAP is for debtors with no realisable assets and debts within a defined range, and it is available once. It runs for roughly a year and then discharges the qualifying debts. For a creditor the practical reading is simple: the debt is very likely gone, and effort is better spent elsewhere.

Debt repayment order

A DRO is a supervised arrangement to pay a proportion of debts over time without bankruptcy. Unlike the other two, it signals capacity to pay something, and the terms of the order govern what a creditor may expect.

Corporate insolvency: read the status and the documents

A company's register entry will show it as registered, in liquidation, in receivership, in voluntary administration, or removed. Each carries different consequences.

Liquidation appoints a liquidator to realise assets for creditors generally, under a statutory priority order in which unsecured creditors sit late. The liquidator's six monthly reports are published on the register and are the most useful document available: they set out assets realised, likely distributions and the reasons for failure.

Receivership is appointed by a secured creditor over the assets its security covers, and is run for that creditor. Assets may be realised without any distribution to unsecured creditors at all.

Voluntary administration is an attempt at rescue, with a moratorium while an administrator assesses whether the company can continue or a compromise can be reached.

Removal from the register ends the company's existence. Recovery from a removed company requires restoration, which is possible but rarely worth it for a modest debt.

Searching properly

For individuals, name alone is not enough. The register indexes by name and date of birth, and common names produce both false matches and misses. Where the date of birth is unknown, an insolvency result should be treated as indicative until a second identifier confirms it. The identity work that supports this is described on the identity verification page.

For companies, search the entity number rather than the name. Names are reused, similar names proliferate within groups, and a company can be renamed shortly before or after appointment. The reading of the rest of the record is covered in how to search a company and its directors.

What insolvency status does not tell you

It does not tell you the debtor has no assets. Property may be held in a trust or by an associated entity, and the register will not show that. It does not tell you that a solvent looking debtor can pay, because insolvency is a status that follows a formal step someone has to take. And it does not tell you about associated entities: a director whose company was liquidated last year may run three others, which is what a director search shows.

For that reason an insolvency check is usually run alongside a PPSR search and a property check, as set out on the insolvency searches page and the insolvency source page.

Collections teams will find the wider process on the credit and collections page. Access is issued to verified professional users through the request access page.