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Closing a business

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If you’re an Insolvency Practitioner (IP) or Official Receiver (OR) we know you have lots to manage when you take over an insolvent business. To help you with your pension duties, this page directs you to everything you need to know about our process.

Dealing with a business that’s in administration, receivership or subject to a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA)? You need to follow a different process.

How we support you

Our six steps guide IPs and ORs through our process and our informative help centre articles are here to support you along the way.

You can always email us for assistance too. To discuss a specific employer account just make sure you have their Nest employer ID, the insolvency date and the supporting evidence outlined in our process.

The six-step process

1

Raise an insolvency notification

The employer notifies us of insolvency and sends us supporting evidence.

Alternatively, you can raise the notification by sending the evidence yourself -  see step 2.

2

Send supporting evidence for validation

Email us the evidence we require to raise a notification and we’ll complete our validation checks.

3

Access the employer’s Nest account

Accept the delegate access invite that’s emailed to you, so you can gain access to the employer’s Nest account. You can then add other individuals to the account, like third party administrators for example, so they can access it too

4

Tell us how much will be paid

Once you calculate the contributions due for each worker, tell us how much will be paid and how to allocate funds using one or more exception schedule.

5

Arranging payment

We can process exception schedules that relate to payments from the employer’s assets as soon as the funds are available. 

If the Redundancy Payment Office (RPO) are making a payment, send us an RP15 form and we complete the relevant section and return it to you so you can proceed with the claim. When we receive the RPO’s payment, we then match it to your corresponding exception schedule.

6

Closing the account

Once we receive and allocate all payments, we close the employer’s Nest account.

Related articles for insolvency practitioners

Telling us about an insolvency

Whether you’re raising an insolvency notification or assisting an employer to do this, our help centre article is here for you.

How do I notify Nest of insolvency?

Accepting delegate access

Learn how to get delegate access to an employer’s Nest account as an insolvency practitioner.

How do I gain access to a Nest account?

Calculating contributions after an insolvency

Find out the steps to follow and information to send us if your business becomes insolvent.

How do I find out what contributions are owed?

Understanding exception schedules

Find out everything you need to know about exception schedules.

How do I create and pay an exception schedule?

Related content for employers

Let us know about insolvency

Find out the steps to follow and information to send us if your business becomes insolvent.

How do I notify Nest of insolvency?

Insolvency and your Nest employer account

Understand the steps that take place once you’ve informed us of insolvency.

What happens after notifying Nest of insolvency?