The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act will introduce a number of changes over the next few years the main aim of which is the tackling of economic crime by improving the quality of the data held at Companies House.

If you are a director, company secretary or an appointed professional who deals with Companies House on behalf of a limited company, you should be aware of those changes that come into effect on 4th March 2024.  A very brief summary of these changes are as follows:

Registered office address

You will no longer be able to use a PO Box address.  Your company’s registered office address must be deemed as an “appropriate address”, such that if a document is delivered there by post or by hand it would be expected to reach that person acting on behalf of the company.

Statement of lawful purpose

There’ll be a new requirement when you register or ‘incorporate’ a company.  The subscribers to the company will need to confirm they’re forming the company for a lawful purpose.

A company will also need to confirm its intended future activities are lawful, on their annual confirmation statement.

Registrar’s powers

the registrar will have greater powers to query and challenge information that appears to be incorrect or inconsistent with information it holds.  In some cases, they will also be able to remove information more quickly, if that information is inaccurate, incomplete, false or fraudulent.

There’ll be stronger checks on company names which may give a false or misleading impression to the public.  This will help improve the accuracy and quality of the data held at Companies House and help to tackle the misuse of company names.

The register will use annotations on the register to let users know about potential issues with the information that’s been supplied to Companies House. They will also be taking steps to clean up the register, using data matching to identify and remove inaccurate information.

(It should also be noted that a new identity verification process will be introduced during 2024).

Enforcement and sanctions

There will be serious consequences if a company does not respond to a formal request from Companies House for more information. This could include:

  • a financial penalty
  • an annotation on the company’s record
  • prosecution

There could also be serious consequences for a company if its registered office is not an appropriate address.

If the registrar is satisfied a company’s registered office is not appropriate, they will be able to change it to a default address, held at Companies House.  If a company’s registered office is moved to the default address, they must provide an appropriate address with evidence of proprietary ownership within 28 days, or Companies House could start the process to strike the company off the register.

For further detailed information on the proposed company law changes please go to https://changestoukcompanylaw.campaign.gov.uk/

If you feel that you may need assistance with the legal compliance elements of running your company please get in contact with Amanda Sells at amandasells@wbw.co.uk or on 01392 260125 who will be more than happy to discuss how best we can help you.