With the recent economic climate, of late a lot of enquiries are on ceasing of business mostly due to the owners wishes to retire or due to the weak economic they no longer wish to operate the business or simply because they foresee the company may not be able to pay its debts if it continue further and thus decide to call it a day.
There are options to close down a company and of course the fee ranges widely depending on the circumstances and situation the company is currently in.
In short, if the company assets is more than its liabilities, you could either apply for strike-off or you could wind-up the company via voluntary liquidation.
Most people especially those whom are encountering it for the first time, by just looking at the fee and without enquiring further would have opted for strike off. Strike-off is the cheapest way whereby upon full filing the criteria, your company name would be strike-off from the Registrar of Company.
But striking-off doesn't means that liabilities of the company and directors is done as unlike voluntary liquidation, strike-off doesn't go through a long process of liquidation administration which include obtaining necessary clearances from the governments authorities, advertisement for proof of debts, calling of meetings and etc.
In short, even though your company has been strike-off, your creditors be it your trade or non trade creditors or even the authorities could still come back and haunt you in the future i.e the liability of every directors continues as if the company has not been dissolved.
In the market, there are some providers of voluntary liquidation services at a cheaper fee however their scope of work may not includes obtaining of clearances, thus it is crucial to enquire into the scope of work and not just by merely looking and comparing at the fees.
As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
