§ 26 InsO (dismissal for lack of assets)

Under § 26 InsO the court dismisses the opening petition if the debtor's assets are unlikely to cover the costs of the proceeding (court costs, preliminary administrator's fee) — unless a sufficient cost advance is paid or costs are deferred. No administrator with disposal rights is ever appointed in this scenario.

The dismissal is likewise publicly announced (§ 30 InsO) and regularly triggers ex officio deregistration of the company from the commercial register (§ 394 FamFG) once it's established that no assets remain. Until deregistration, though, the company continues to exist legally.

For buyers, dismissal for lack of assets is usually uninteresting — there's no administrator, no orderly monetisation process, and typically hardly any assets of value (otherwise the estate would have covered costs in the first place). Occasionally still worth a look: brands, domains or licences can be legally unencumbered and valuable even though operations have already stopped — the contact is then the (not yet deregistered) management directly, not an administrator.