Company formations

What Is Companies House?  

Companies House is a governmental agency that is part of BERR (the department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) that regulates companies and maintains company records. There are currently more than two million registered companies in the UK, and each year approximately 300,000 new companies are incorporated at Companies House, that are increasingly formed electronically rather than on paper forms. Business owners that have limited companies, as well as limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and public limited companies (PLCs) will have a lot of dealings with Companies House.

Reporting Obligations

Although there are obvious benefits that come with limited liability, there are increased reporting requirements and other obligations. The main functions of Companies House are forming and dissolving companies, maintaining records of companies as required by law, and making this information available to the general public.

If you are a director or company secretary of a limited company, there are numerous obligations that are placed upon you by law, which can have severe penalties if you do not comply with them. It is therefore vital that you are well informed of your duties as an officer of a limited company, so as to avoid penalty charges, disqualification as a director, or other sanctions.

For example if a director resigns, new shares are allocated, or the company’s registered office changes, Companies House must be informed. Here are some examples of the main types of information that need to be sent to Companies House.

Accounts

Regardless of whether your company is trading or not, you must keep accounting records and file them with Companies House at the appropriate time.  It is a personal responsibility on the director of a company to ensure that accounts are delivered on time, and there are penalties for filing late accounts. It is therefore very important that you make yourself aware of your accounting reference date (available on your company’s page on the Companies House website.)

Annual Returns

All companies must send an annual return to Companies House on Form 363. This document updates Companies House as to the company’s registered office, who the directors are, who the shareholders are and how many shares they have, amongst other things. Again, it is important that this information is filed on time.

Changes To Your Company

If your company’s registered office changes, you must inform Companies House within a specific period of time. A registered office must be a physical address at which records can be kept – it is not sufficient to use a PO Box for this purpose.

As the registered office is the address to which Companies House send all correspondence relating to the limited company, it must be an address at which the post is checked regularly. A considerable number of companies nominate their accountants address as their registered office for administrative reasons. A change of registered office must be made on Form 287.

People leave and join companies all the time, but if they are an officer of the company (i.e. director or company secretary) Companies House must be notified. There are different forms depending on the circumstances: use Form 288(a)  to appoint an officer; 288(b) for resignation, death or removal of an officer, and 288(c) to change an officer’s personal details, such as a change of home address.

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