When is a director personally liable for a company's debts?

The exception that pays: personal guarantees

Check your credit application, terms of business and account-opening paperwork — trade creditors often obtained a guarantee at the start and forget it exists. A valid PG makes the director personally liable, survives the company's insolvency, and turns a write-off into a recoverable debt against someone with a home address and a credit rating. Recovery against guarantors is standard agency work.

The narrower routes

Insolvency law can reach directors who kept trading and worsening creditors' position when insolvency was unavoidable (wrongful trading), or who acted fraudulently — but these claims generally belong to the liquidator, not individual creditors, and are slow. More directly useful: a director who gave you false information to obtain credit, an overdrawn director's loan account the liquidator can pursue, or the 'phoenix' rules — reusing a liquidated company's name can itself create personal liability for the successor's debts.

Practical takeaway: if a corporate debtor is wobbling, hunt for the guarantee first, preserve your paperwork, and get the debt professionally chased before insolvency — because after it, you're one unsecured voice in the liquidator's inbox. If the company has already gone under, our guide to a debtor going bust covers the queue you're joining.