Amendments to the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 – in force from Monday 22 June 2026

Why should I read this?

The Insolvency (England and Wales) (Amendment) Rules 2026 (SI 2026/561) came into force on Monday 22 June 2026 and make certain amendments to the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 (SI 2016/1024) (“IR 2016”). 

As the appointment of administrators is a technical area of insolvency work that can contain traps for the unwary, in this briefing we look at two key changes which will have an immediate impact in day-to-day practice in this space.  Insolvency practitioners, legal advisors, and others involved in insolvency work should take note.

What is changing?

The changes that we focus on in this briefing address issues that those operating in the insolvency market have had to spend time grappling with, as follows:

• In a welcome and pragmatic change reflecting the reality of electronic filing, a new sub-paragraph (3) has been introduced into IR 1.46.  It reads as follows:
  
  “Where these Rules require more than one copy of a document to be delivered to the court, or by the court to a party, and the document is delivered electronically, only one copy is to be delivered”.
  
  This addresses the issues caused by the interaction of, on the one hand, rules written with hard-copy filing in mind and, on the other, the rise of electronic filing.  For example, in the context of notices of appointment, IR 3.26(1) requires that “Three copies of the notice of appointment must be filed with the court” which on a literal reading (and as confirmed in the 2024 case of Haw & Anor v QM Systems Ltd [2024] EWHC 1944 (Ch)) requires three copies of the document to be filed, even where that was being done electronically.  As a result of this change, practitioners will no longer need to concern themselves with the logistics of how to file three copies of the same document when filing electronically.
• It had previously been a requirement, during an administration appointment process under paragraph 22 of Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986, that the notice of appointment specified “the date and time of the appointment”. The difficulty arose from the need to state, in a document being drafted ahead of the appointment, the date and time of when that future event would take place.  This issue also came before the courts, being considered in the case of Re Spaces London Bridge Ltd [2018] EWHC 3099 (Ch).  This judgment gave rise to the practice of including wording saying “This appointment will take effect at the date and time specified below as the date and time when the notice is filed”, or a variant of that wording.  The Insolvency Service accepted that including wording such as this is superfluous and, in a further pragmatic step, the previous Rule 3.24(1)(j) and Rule 3.25(2)(k) have now been omitted from the IR 2016. 

Why does this matter?

The changes are welcome evidence of the views of market participants being taken on board and legislation being updated to ensure it is fit for purpose in the context of modern working practices. The amendments remove unnecessary and cumbersome steps from the process of appointing administrators and thereby help insolvency practitioners and their legal advisors focus on the substantive issues that really matter in assisting companies in financial difficulty.

How Eversheds Sutherland can assist

The changes highlighted in this article are just two amongst a number of amendments to the IR 2016 introduced pursuant to the Insolvency (England and Wales) (Amendment) Rules 2026. Should you require advice on how these amendments might impact you, Eversheds Sutherland can leverage its market-leading strength and depth of experience in restructuring and insolvency work to assist.  For more information or guidance, please get in touch with one of the individuals below.