Summer holiday anyone? 

Sadly, my attempts to clear my desk hit a speed bump with the landing of two SIs: the unexpected amendments to the IR16 and the not-so-unexpected-but-ETA-long-unclear amendments to the MLR17.  Add to that the HMRC change to the approved mileage rates, and the list of template changes is not far off three figures.

In this blog post, I set out what needs changing in the hope that I can save some of you the time working it all out.

The Insolvency (England and Wales) (Amendment) Rules 2026 can be found at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/561/contents/made

The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2026 can be found at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/621/contents/made

IR16 Changes

With effect from 21 June 2026, the following will be changed:

1. ADM: removal of appointment by fax options on QFCH out-of-hours appointment notice

2. ADM: removal of statement of date and time of Administrator’s appointment on Company/Directors appointment notices (both the form following notice of intention and the form with no notice of intention)

3. ADM: checklist change that electronic filings to court only require the delivery of one copy of each doc being filed (this change technically affects all case types, but I suspect that in practice ADM appointments is the only occasion it will be felt by IPs)

4. BKY: amendment to the R10.87 notice (notice that administration of the estate is complete, i.e. the form that accompanies the final report to creditors) as follows:

The Trustee will vacate office under Section 298(8) of the Act when, after the end of the prescribed period, the Trustee:

• files with the Court a notice that the Trustee has given notice to the creditors under Section 331 of the Act, where the bankruptcy is based on a creditor’s petition; or
• delivers to the Official Receiver a notice that the Trustee has given notice to the creditors under Section 331 of the Act, where the bankruptcy is based on a debtor’s application.

5. BKY: amendment to the final notice(s) to the court of objections to release or no objections received to reflect that the notice may go to the OR instead (in our doc packs, this is only a change to the notice header)

6. BKY: other docs/letters will probably need amending to reflect that in debtor’s application cases the final notice is destined for the OR only and that delivery of that notice to the OR results in the Trustee’s release (provided no objections were received)

7. BKY: checklist changes to reflect the above change to the closure process

Note that R10.87(6) requires a copy of the final notice to be sent to the OR in all cases (debtor’s application and creditor’s petition), so the only change is that the Rules now make clear that no delivery of the final notice to the court is required in debtor’s application cases and the delivery of the notice to the OR in those cases results in vacation of office and release (if no objections).

8. BKY: removal of the debtor’s address from progress (and final) reports

This is an odd change.  Dear IP 171 suggests that “identification details for the bankrupt” is a simple duplication of “identification details for the proceedings”, so the removal of the former makes no difference.  However, it does. 

R1.6 defines the ID of the bankrupt as their full name and residential address (unless disclosure is prohibited under Part 20), whereas it defines the ID of the proceedings as the bankrupt’s full name and the court/adjudicator’s reference.  Therefore, removing the ID of the bankrupt from R18.3 means there is no longer a requirement to state the bankrupt’s address in progress reports.

Why would they do this?  I have no idea!

Might they consider that it is a bit excessive to provide the bankrupt’s address long after the original order was made?  Maybe, but the requirement to ID the bankrupt remains in R1.29(c), which sets out the requirements for statutory notices to creditors etc.  This means that the R10.87 notice, which accompanies the final report, still needs to include the bankrupt’s address, so what is achieved by dropping it for progress reports?

This leads me to another question I’ve always had about the BKY rules.  What address is required to be disclosed on notices?  R1.6 suggests it is the bankrupt’s residential address at the time of the notice, but why?

Surely, the purpose of providing the bankrupt’s residential address is to help creditors track down their claim.  But what if the bankrupt moved after the commencement of the bankruptcy?  Would the Trustee need to provide to creditors the bankrupt’s new address (where the ID of the bankrupt is a statutory requirement)?  Wouldn’t this be a disproportionate disclosure of personal information?

If this is the kind of scenario that the Insolvency Service has sought to avoid by amending R18.3, then why did they not change R1.6 to reflect, say, that disclosure of the bankrupt’s residential address means their address at the time of the bankruptcy order?

9. ADM, BKY, CVL, WUC: perhaps check checklists to ensure they reflect R18.30, which now provides that, where there is a committee, any request for fees over that set out in the fees estimate should be directed to the committee (unless the court fixed the fee basis)

Dear IP explains that this was to address the scenario in which the creditors fixed the fee basis and later a committee was established.  The old R18.30 indicated that the additional fee request should go to the creditors, whereas now it makes clear that it should go to the committee.

While that change is fair enough, I think it resurrects an historic shady practice of first getting one’s fees approved by the general body of creditors and thereafter, often at the same meeting, establishing a committee and taking the view that the committee was not required to approve the fees as they had already been dealt with.  The Dear IP suggests that this practice – that the RPBs worked hard to put a stop to – is no longer dead.

The minor tweak of R18.30 also does not deal with the many other fees issues not satisfactorily addressed by the Rules… which brings me to another complaint.

Is that it?!

Dear IP 171 explains that these changes were identified from the first Rules Review and that there will be a consultation “in the coming quarter” in relation other proposals for change identified from that Review.

The first Rules Review report listed a number of other suggestions for change that appeared to me to be minor and technical, for example clarifying the use of “between” in Rs6.14 and 15.4, which in a previous Dear IP the Insolvency Service explained has a different meaning in each rule. 

The first Rules Review report also listed “various” other unspecified suggestions, which I hope included not a few of my own.  I submitted a consultation response for the first Rules review (MB-rules-review-response-04-07-21.pdf) in which I listed many issues that I believe are minor and/or technical.  While of course I accept that the Insolvency Service may disagree with the points I raised, I was disappointed to see that only one of my points – the R10.87 issue with a Trustee’s release in a debtor application case – has been included in the Amendment Rules.

What has happened to all the others?  Unless the forthcoming consultation makes clear that they are taking those forward, I’m afraid I have lost all enthusiasm for spending more of my own time pointing out the issues with the Rules.

MLR17 Changes

The MLR17 amendments take effect from 30 June 2026.  While very few will affect insolvency-related docs, I recommend taking a look at the following:

1. Purchaser AML checklist: amend any reference to the threshold for an occasional transaction, which is being changed from €15,000 to £12,000. 

Per the CCAB AML Guidance appendix for IPs, AML CDD is required by any Trustee in Bankruptcy who intends to carry out an occasional transaction (e.g. selling an asset), so the threshold change is relevant in those cases. 

Also, while technically sales dealt with by other office holders are not subject to the AML CDD requirements (unless the insolvent/MVL entity itself is AML-regulated), many IP firms’ procedures include a risk assessment of proposed asset sales in other cases and use the occasional transaction threshold as part of that assessment.  Therefore, you might also want to revisit those procedures.

The HVD threshold is also changing – from €10,000 to £10,000 – but I don’t think many firms expect to sell assets for suitcases full of cash, so I don’t imagine this change will need reflecting anywhere.

2. AML risk assessments (1): change “High Risk Third Countries” references to “FATF call for action countries”… but don’t forget their “grey list”

The Amendments have switched out High Risk Third Countries for the FATF call for action countries.  This means that strictly speaking EDD is no longer automatically required for clients established in most of the 25 countries that we’re used to focussing on, but instead only on the currently 3 “black list” countries (currently DPRK, Iran and Myanmar).

But of course the MLR Supervisors’ guidance encourages us to consider the risks inherent in a wider geographical scope in any event, so any client connection with any of the remaining 22 “grey list” countries may still be a risk factor that needs to feature in the firm’s Firm-Wide Risk Assessment and in case-specific risk assessment checklists/guidance.

Therefore, this change seems little more than cosmetic: I don’t think it has any practical effect on firm’s policies, procedures and controls, but if you update your docs to reflect the new terminology, it might demonstrate that you are clued up on the changes.

I suspect also that the .gov.uk High Risk Third Countries page may be renamed or abandoned in future, so you may wish to update any links in forms and guidance to https://www.fatf-gafi.org/en/countries/black-and-grey-lists.html

3. AML risk assessments (2): change “complex or unusually large” to “unusually complex or unusually large in each case given the nature of the transaction”

This is a verrrry subtle change, but again by making the change wherever this phrase appears in Firm-Wide Risk Assessments or case-specific risk assessment checklists/guidance, it shows you’re up-to-date.

HMRC Mileage Rate Changes

With effect from 6 April 2026, the HMRC-approved mileage rate has changed from 45p to 55p per mile (for the first 10,000 miles in a tax year): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-travel-mileage-and-fuel-allowances/travel-mileage-and-fuel-rates-and-allowances

Therefore, firms that seek to charge mileage as a Category 2 expense may wish to change their expense policy docs, expenses estimate templates and any other templates that quote the rate.

I also recommend that you have a close look at how you have proposed to set the mileage rate in the docs on existing cases where Category 2 expenses have already been approved.  For example, if your docs simply stated the rate at 45p per mile, there would be no automatic right for the firm to recoup mileage costs at 55p per mile even if the firm paid this to its employees.  However, if your docs noted that the rate is subject to change in line with any change in HMRC’s rates change, then you may feel confident to recoup mileage incurred since 6 April 2026 at 55p.

So is that everything?

Haha, of course not!

The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has been busy rolling out changes since it was made a year ago.  Again, most changes are – as far as I can tell – pretty inconsequential for day-to-day insolvency work… although I confess I’ve not read the full 276 pages plus 6 associated sets of regulations! 

Fortunately for me, Jo has agreed to take on that little project – thanks Jo! 😊