To fill out Form 535, the Formal Proof of Debt or Claim used in Australian liquidations, you enter your details as the creditor, itemize what the company owes you with dates and amounts, attach the invoices and contracts that back the claim, declare any security you hold and whether you are a related party, then sign the statutory declaration and lodge it with the appointed liquidator by the deadline in their notice. The form is prescribed under Subregulation 5.6.49(2) of the Corporations Regulations 2001.1ASIC. Insolvency Forms for Liquidators It goes to the liquidator, not to ASIC or the court.
Two things turn on lodging it. A completed Form 535 lets you vote at creditor meetings and puts you in line for any dividend the liquidator later distributes. Skip it and you have neither.
When You Lodge It
You do not lodge Form 535 on your own initiative. The liquidator sends you a notice when it is time, usually before a creditor meeting or before a dividend is declared, and the notice includes a blank form and a deadline.2ASIC. Liquidation: A Guide for Creditors
For voting, get the form in before the meeting. For a dividend, the liquidator must give you at least 14 days’ notice of the deadline, and the same notice is published on ASIC’s Published Notices website.2ASIC. Liquidation: A Guide for Creditors Miss the dividend deadline and you can be shut out of that distribution.
What to Gather Before You Start
Pull your records together before opening the form. You will need:
- Your full legal name and address. If you are a business creditor, your ABN, and for a partnership the names of all partners.
- The total amount owed, calculated in dollars and cents as at the date in the notice from the liquidator (often the date the administration or winding-up began).
- A short description of how the debt arose for each item — for example, goods sold and delivered between specific dates, or services invoiced under a dated contract.
- The GST included in each line item.
- Details of any security you hold over company property, and its estimated value. Any bills of exchange or negotiable instruments need dates, drawer, acceptor, amount, and due date.
- Copies of the invoices, contracts, purchase orders, delivery dockets, and statements of account that prove the debt. Attach copies, not originals; the liquidator will ask for originals if they need them.2ASIC. Liquidation: A Guide for Creditors
Filling Out the Form Section by Section
Form 535 is a one-page statutory declaration. Work through it in order.3Bentleys. Form 535 Formal Proof of Debt or Claim
Creditor Identity and Total Debt
At the top, insert the date the company became indebted to you, or the date specified in the liquidator’s notice (commonly the date of the winding-up order or the start of the administration). Enter your full legal name, address, and ABN. Partnerships list every partner. Then state the total debt in both words and figures.
Particulars of the Debt
The main table breaks the debt into line items. Each row takes a date, a description of how that portion arose (the form labels this “Consideration”), the dollar amount, and the GST component. Under “Remarks,” reference the invoice numbers or voucher details for each item. This is where sloppy claims fail. Vague entries like “various services” give the liquidator nothing to reconcile against the company’s own books, and partial rejections often trace back to this section.
Securities Held
State whether you hold any security over the company’s property. If you do, describe it and estimate its current value. Bills of exchange and other negotiable instruments go into the schedule format the form provides. If you hold no security, say so plainly.
Related-Creditor Declaration
The form asks whether you are a related creditor, meaning a director, a relative of a director, a related company, or a beneficiary of a related trust. Tick the correct box, and if you are related, describe the relationship. Related-creditor claims attract closer scrutiny and can rank behind arm’s-length unsecured creditors in some circumstances.
Signature Options
An individual creditor signs personally at the bottom. Where the creditor is a company, an authorised person signs, typically a director, solicitor, or credit manager. The form gives two signing options: one for an authorised employee (delete option 3B) and one for an authorised agent such as a solicitor or accountant (delete option 3A). Print your name in block letters, state your occupation, and date the form.
How to Submit It
Send the completed form and every supporting document to the appointed liquidator or external administrator. It can be delivered or posted to the liquidator.2ASIC. Liquidation: A Guide for Creditors Most practitioners also accept email submissions with PDF attachments or lodgment through a creditor portal.
Whichever channel you use, ask the liquidator to acknowledge receipt and to confirm whether anything else is needed. If a dispute later arises about whether you lodged on time, that acknowledgment is your paper trail. Keep copies of everything you send, and if the liquidator writes back asking for clarification, respond quickly. Silence can be read as abandonment.
What Happens After You Lodge
The liquidator checks your form and documents against the company’s books, ledgers, and bank statements, then decides whether to admit the claim in full, admit part of it, or reject it.
The bar differs for the two uses of the form. For voting at a meeting, the presiding person or external administrator considers whether the claim is proven on the balance of probabilities at a prima facie level.4Law Council of Australia. Submissions on Insolvency Practice Rules 2016 For dividends, the liquidator has to be satisfied the debt actually exists and the amount is right. A meeting chairperson who is uncertain must mark your vote as “objected to” and let you vote provisionally; it only gets thrown out if the objection is later sustained.2ASIC. Liquidation: A Guide for Creditors
If Your Claim Is Rejected
If the liquidator rejects all or part of your claim, they must notify you of the grounds within seven days using the prescribed Form 537. That notice states how long you have to appeal to the court. The appeal window cannot be shorter than 14 days from the date you receive the rejection, though the liquidator may allow longer.5Federal Register of Legislation. Corporations Regulations 2001
If you miss that deadline, the court has discretion to extend time, but do not plan around that. Read the rejection notice the day it lands and, if you disagree, get legal advice immediately.
The path is different when the rejection is only about voting at a meeting. In that case you can appeal the chairperson’s decision to the court within 10 business days.2ASIC. Liquidation: A Guide for Creditors
What an Admitted Claim Is Worth
Admission entitles you to a proportional share of any dividend the liquidator declares. What arrives in your bank account depends on the asset pool, the costs of the liquidation, and where your claim sits in the statutory priority order: liquidator’s costs first (subject to secured creditors’ rights over their collateral), then secured creditors out of their security, then employee entitlements (wages and superannuation, then leave, then retrenchment pay), then general unsecured creditors sharing whatever remains proportionally.6Parliament of Australia. Chapter 11 – Assets of the Company and Creditors’ Priority
In many liquidations, general unsecured creditors receive cents in the dollar or nothing. Lodging Form 535 does not guarantee payment. Not lodging it guarantees none.