Changes to Companies House Filing and Charges

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14 March 2024

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Companies House begins phased roll out of new powers to tackle fraud

Company Secretarial Filing with Companies House - Update

Companies House recently announced changes following The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCT) Bill which received royal assent on 26 October 2023. Companies House will have greater powers to query information. There will be stronger checks on company names, new rules for registered office addresses, and new lawful purpose statements.

The act gives Companies House the power to play a more significant role in tackling economic crime and supporting economic growth. Over time, the measures will lead to improved transparency and more accurate and trusted information on their registers.

There’ll be new responsibilities for:

all new and existing company directors
people with significant control of a company (PSCs)
anyone who files on behalf of a company

Registered email address

New companies will need to give a registered email address when they incorporate, from 4th March 2024.

Existing companies will need to give a registered email address when they file their next confirmation statement, with a statement date from 5th March 2024 onwards.

Under the act, all companies will need to provide a registered email address. Companies House will use this email address to communicate with the company and to send them official notices – it will not be available to the public.

The registered email address can be the person who oversees the company secretarial work on a company’s behalf – i.e. where they are engaged to carry out company secretarial work. It works much the same as a registered office address.

A company’s registered email address will be used by Companies House to communicate directly with the company and to send them official notices. The email address provided will not be available to the public. Although not stated in their blog post, it is expected that Companies House will eventually start sending emails instead of hardcopy letters.

This is an extract from the act:

Duty to maintain a registered email address:

A company must ensure that its registered email address is at all times an appropriate email address.
An email address is an “appropriate email address” if, in the ordinary course of events, emails sent to it by the registrar would be expected to come to the attention of a person acting on behalf of the company.

You can read about the changes in more depth here: https://changestoukcompanylaw.campaign.gov.uk/

Price increases

Secondary legislation was granted on 19^th February 2024 regarding the fees charged by Companies House - Registrar of Companies (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.

This means that from 1^st May 2024 Companies House are increasing their fees ‘to take new future expenditure into account, as well as making sure costs are recovered from existing expenditure’.

Filing fee for annual Confirmation statement increases from £13 to £34
Filing fee for submitting the document to incorporate a new limited company increases from £10 to £50 (increase from £30 to £78 for same day incorporation)
Filing fee to submit the document to change a company name increases from £8 to £20 (increase from £30 to £83 for same day change of name)
Voluntary strike off application fee increases from £10 to £44

There are many other proposed changes due to be implemented over the coming weeks. Last year Companies House confirmed they will be implementing a new identity verification processes to help deter those wishing to start companies for illegal purposes. You can read more about it here.

Haines Watts

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