The short answer
A credit check is cheap, which is why it belongs at the start of acquisition work rather than the end. Buy-side due diligence answers two questions: what is this business worth, and what could go wrong after completion? Public-record data feeds both. It screens a list of candidates in minutes and prices the riskiest ones out before you spend adviser fees on them. Later, it supplies the evidence behind warranties and completion accounts, and it keeps working after the deal, because the company you just bought can still pick up a judgment or a petition. The record does not replace diligence. It tells you where to dig.
Where credit checks fit in the deal timeline
| Stage | What the public record settles |
|---|---|
| Screening | Rank a list of candidates by risk before anyone is approached. A credit score is a filter, not a verdict: it tells you which names deserve a closer look and which do not. |
| Early diligence | Confirm status, read up to five years of accounts, check for county court judgments, charges and winding-up petitions, and map the directors. Decide who is worth spending adviser fees on. |
| Deal execution | Evidence for the share purchase agreement: warranties on litigation and indebtedness, and disclosure against them, should reflect what the courts and the charges register already show. |
| Post-completion | Watch the entity you now own. Fresh CCJs, new charges or a first Gazette notice in the first year after a deal are exactly the signals the seller's pack will not mention, because they have not happened yet. |
What each record tells you, and what it does not
No single record settles an acquisition. Each one answers a different question, and the gaps between them are where diligence earns its fees.
| Record | Answers | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| R-Score and risk rating | A composite view of financial health and filing behaviour, comparable across every candidate on your list. | Averages across the group and dates quickly in a live process. A score is a filter, not a valuation. |
| Five years of accounts | Direction of travel: margin trend, cash against debt, and which balance-sheet items keep growing. | Historical, entity-level and unaudited below the audit threshold. Intercompany balances need a QoE to unwind. |
| CCJs | Whether suppliers and lenders have already taken the company to court and won. | Unpaid judgments stay on the register for six years unless set aside or paid within one month. A judgment records a dispute lost, not always an inability to pay. |
| Charges register | Which assets are already secured to lenders, and therefore what is left to lend against or recover. | Covers registered security, not unregistered quasi-security such as retention-of-title clauses or forward flow arrangements. |
| Winding-up petitions | Whether a creditor has asked the court to close the company over an unpaid debt. An active petition is as severe as a public record gets. | Petitions are withdrawn more often than they are advertised. The absence of a petition is the absence of evidence, not evidence of health. |
| Director history | Where the people behind the company have been, and which of their other appointments overlap the deal. | Appointments are not failures. A director who has already run one company into insolvency is a question for the process, not an answer. |
Watch the subsidiary, not just the letterbox
Most UK acquisitions are of private companies inside groups, and the deal usually aims at one entity. Before you price the deal on the letterbox parent, ask which subsidiary holds the contracts, the people and the bank accounts. A charge registered against the operating company does not appear on the parent's record, and a judgment against the subsidiary does not appear on the parent's either. Map the group, then check each entity that matters, including the guarantors: a guarantee from a company that is itself distressed is worth very little. The shell company guide covers the tell-tale signs of an entity with nothing behind it.
The growth story and the accounting period
Sellers arrive with a growth story. Two public-record details test it. The first is consistency: a company that reports record turnover should show the working capital and cash to support it, and the accounts are the place that shows. The second is the accounting period itself. A shortened period usually ends before a big transaction, and a one-off extension usually ends after one. In an acquisition process, both often mark the year the company is being dressed for sale. That does not make the accounts wrong. It makes the year the accounts cover a question worth asking, and the accounting-period red flag guide explains why.
Putting the record into the deal documents
Diligence only earns its fee when it changes the documents. Public-record findings belong in the share purchase agreement and the plan for day one: warranties on litigation, indebtedness and security reflect what the courts and the charges register already show; disclosure letters say which of those facts the buyer has accepted; price or structure move where the record supports it, an indemnity for a known judgment, a holdback where a charge falls away on repayment; and the clean team's screening notes, run before exclusivity, keep commercially sensitive findings inside the deal rather than in the data room index. A seller who resists a warranty that mirrors the public record is telling you something the record already did.
Check any England & Wales company free. R-Score, CCJs, winding-up petitions, charges and up to five years of accounts on every profile.