What does the Official Assignee do with the money?

Money recovered by the Official Assignee during the course of the liquidation is paid out to creditors.

The Companies Act 1993 specifies the priority of payments to creditors, as follows:

• Official Assignee’s fees, expenses and remuneration
• Costs awarded by the Court to the applicant creditor
• Creditor’s costs and claims, where the creditor has assisted the Official Assignee in the recovery of assets for the benefit of creditors
• Actual ‘out-of-pocket’ expenses of any liquidation committee
• Wages owed to employees for the four month period prior to the liquidation and all holiday pay and redundancy payments (Note: to a maximum of $NZ18,700 per employee)
• Preferential taxes collected for Inland Revenue (GST, PAYE, employee deductions for Child Support and more)
• All other unsecured creditors.