On 22 June 2026, amendments to the Insolvency (England & Wales) Rules 2016 come into force. These amendments aim to address some practical issues which have arisen since the 2016 Rules became effective.
The amendments include the following:
- Removing references to delivery of documents by fax.
- Raising the threshold to £500,000 for bankruptcy petitions presented in the London District to be allocated to the High Court.
- Updating references to "Registrar" to "Judge", reflecting the designation of Insolvency & Companies Court Judges as such.
- Where a bankruptcy commences on a debtor's own application, the Trustee's notice at the conclusion of the bankruptcy should be delivered to the Official Receiver, not filed at Court.
- Where approval is sought to exceed any fees estimate, that request should be made to any existing creditor committee (except where the court fixed the basis). If there is no creditor committee, the request should be made to the relevant class of creditors which fixed the basis.
- Where documents are required to be delivered electronically, only one copy of the document is required (rather than 3, which caused some alarm relating to the requirement to file 3 copies of a Notice of Appointment when CE Filing).
- It will no longer be necessary to include the date and time of appointment in a Notice of Appointment.
The amendments and explanatory note can be found here.
