Prohibited-name notice follows Manchester funeral director's voluntary wind-up

A creditors' voluntary liquidation was passed on 24 February 2026 at St Johns Terrace, 11-15 New Road, Radcliffe, Manchester, bringing David Wilkinson Independent Funeral Directors Limited to a close. Steven Wiseglass of Inquesta Corporate Recovery and Insolvency was appointed liquidator at the same meeting.

The Gazette published a prohibited-name notice on 21 May 2026, more than two months after the winding-up resolution. The notice indicates that David Burrows Wilkinson, the sole director since the company's incorporation on 18 April 2019, intends to carry on trading under a name that is the same as, or sufficiently similar to, the liquidated company's name.

David Wilkinson Independent Funeral Directors Limited was incorporated as a private limited company and carried out funerals and related activities, classified under SIC code 96030. Its registered address now sits care of Inquesta at the same New Road, Manchester premises. The company filed micro-entity accounts to 30 April 2024.

The prohibited-name rule

Section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 prohibits a director of a company that has entered liquidation from being involved in another company using the same or a similar name for five years, unless one of the statutory exceptions applies. A notice published in the Gazette is one of those exceptions: it puts creditors and the public on formal notice that the director intends to reuse the name, satisfying the procedural requirements of the Insolvency Rules.

Wilkinson was the company's only recorded director, appointed on the date of incorporation and still in office at the time of the winding-up.

No secured charges were registered against the company, and no court was involved in the liquidation. The winding-up was a voluntary process initiated by the company itself.

For creditors and suppliers

In a creditors' voluntary liquidation, the company's members vote to wind it up and a licensed insolvency practitioner is appointed to realise assets and distribute proceeds to creditors. The liquidator takes over conduct of the company's affairs. Wiseglass and the Inquesta team at 11-15 New Road, Manchester, M26 1LS, handle correspondence with known creditors.

Creditors evidence the amounts they are owed by submitting a proof of debt, the formal claim form used in the liquidation process. Trade suppliers, customers with outstanding deposits or prepaid orders, and other unsecured creditors rank behind preferential claims, including certain employee entitlements, when assets are distributed.

Employee claims for unpaid wages, notice pay and redundancy are handled through the administration of the estate. Where the company's assets are insufficient to meet those claims in full, the Redundancy Payments Service, a government body, pays statutory entitlements to qualifying employees from the National Insurance Fund.