In September 2026 The Gazette published 471 winding-up petitions against UK companies, up 14.6% on August's 411. 45 of them (9.6%) were against companies that own registered property in England and Wales. That share has held at roughly 1 in 10 for three months running (9.9% in July, 9.5% in August). Administrations involve property owners far more often: 38 of September's 93 administration appointments (41%) were at companies holding registered titles.
This is issue #4 of the UK Property Distress Index, our free monthly read of the legal distress building up under UK property-owning companies. It joins HM Land Registry, Companies House and The Gazette, and it follows one rule: no fake zeros. Where we measured something we print the number; where we did not, we say so.
This issue covers both August and September. We missed the August issue at the start of September, so rather than backdate one, we are publishing both months here, side by side.
Winding-up petitions: August and September 2026
- September 2026: 471 winding-up petitions gazetted (+14.6% on August). 45 were against companies we can match to registered property titles in England and Wales.
- August 2026: 411 winding-up petitions gazetted (-18.6% on July's 505). 39 were against property-owning companies.
- The property-owning share is steady: 9.9% in July, 9.5% in August, 9.6% in September. Roughly one winding-up petition in ten is against a company that owns registered land or buildings.
A winding-up petition is one of the earliest public signals of a corporate insolvency. A creditor (often HMRC) asks the court to wind the company up, and the petition is advertised in The Gazette before the hearing. It can still be paid, dismissed or withdrawn, so it is a leading indicator, not a confirmed insolvency.
All Gazette corporate-insolvency notices
Monthly counts by notice type, dated by Gazette publication date. The second figure in each line is how many of those companies own registered titles in England and Wales.
- Administration appointments (code 2410): July 131 / 55 property-owning, August 105 / 40, September 93 / 38.
- Creditors' voluntary liquidations (code 2441): July 1,347 / 137, August 1,088 / 109, September 1,105 / 111.
- Creditors' voluntary liquidation resolutions (code 2443): July 1,496 / 164, August 1,151 / 130, September 1,172 / 131.
- Winding-up petitions (code 2450): July 505 / 50, August 411 / 39, September 471 / 45.
The pattern worth noticing: around 40% of administrations (42% in July, 38% in August, 41% in September) are at property-owning companies, against roughly 10% of liquidations and petitions. One likely reason: administration tends to be used where there are assets worth protecting, and registered property is often one of them.
Where the property-owning petitions were
Regions are HM Land Registry's own region field on each title. A company with titles in more than one region is counted in each, so regional figures add up to slightly more than the national total.
- September 2026: South East 17 companies, Greater London 12, North West 5, East Midlands 4, Yorkshire and the Humber 4, South West 3, East Anglia 1, North 1, Wales 1, West Midlands 1.
- August 2026: South East 14, Greater London 9, North West 5, Yorkshire and the Humber 5, East Midlands 4, North 4, South West 2, West Midlands 2, Wales 1.
Receiverships and strike-offs
- Companies known to be in receivership: 59, holding 3,878 registered titles. This is a floor, not a census.
- New receiver appointments in August and September: not measured. Receiver appointments come from each company's Companies House filing history, and an appointment only shows up once the company is re-checked after it happens. Of the 15,243 owners we track, only 1,210 (7.9%) have been re-checked since August closed and 86 (0.6%) since September closed. Printing 0 would be a fake zero, so we are not printing a number.
- Strike-off notices on property-holding companies: 2 in August and 3 in September. When a company is struck off, its property passes to the Crown as bona vacantia, which puts a hard deadline on any deal.
Elevated stress across the monitored corpus
Each owner's latest reading: 1,091 of the 15,243 England and Wales companies we track score 60 or more out of 100 on our stress score. 562 score 70 or more, 301 score 80 or more, and 210 hit the maximum of 100, where several independent signals (a charge, an overdue filing, an insolvency event) line up at once. 11,767 score under 40 and show few distress signals.
By region, the most elevated-stress owners are in the North West (497 companies), Greater London (378), the South East (360), Yorkshire and the Humber (331) and the West Midlands (322). As above, an owner with titles in several regions is counted in each. A score is a reading at the owner's last Companies House check, not a live feed, and it is an indicator, not a verdict.
Correction to Issue #3
Issue #3 (July 2026) said we monitored 25,365 property-owning companies. That figure wrongly included roughly 13,000 Scottish companies from a separate stress overlay, which are outside this index's England and Wales title scope. The England and Wales corpus was 12,296 companies at the end of July and is 15,243 today, of which 14,339 have matched registered titles. Its elevated-stress counts were on the same combined basis, so they are not comparable with the figures above. Issue #3 also swapped the two creditors' voluntary liquidation lines. The July figures above are restated from the same generator used for August and September.
What we are NOT claiming
- We are not claiming property distress rose or fell overall. Petition counts move month to month. The steady part is the share against property owners.
- We are not saying there were zero new receiverships. We did not measure them this time, and we have said so.
- A petition can be paid, dismissed or withdrawn, and a high stress score can resolve without a sale. Nothing here is financial or investment advice.
Methodology
- Insolvency notices: The Gazette official notice feed, corporate-insolvency codes only (2410, 2441, 2443, 2450), dated by publication date. Our store holds 13,165 notices from 27 November 2025 to 5 October 2026. Late notices can revise a month upward in the next issue.
- Property ownership: a company counts as property-owning when it appears as proprietor on at least one HM Land Registry CCOD/OCOD title (4,504,327 titles, England and Wales).
- Receivers and strike-offs: Companies House filing history for tracked owners, deduplicated per company. Coverage depends on when each owner was last re-checked, which is why we report it explicitly.
- Stress score: a 0-100 score from Companies House filing, charge and insolvency signals per company. It is an indicator, not a fact.
The current issue always lives at dealbrief.co.uk/distress-index, where you can sign up to get each issue by email. The October issue follows at the start of November.
Sources and licences: Companies House (Companies House licence); The Gazette - contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0; HM Land Registry CCOD/OCOD - data produced by HM Land Registry © Crown copyright.