Companies House

Companies House is the United Kingdom Registrar of Companies and is an Executive Agency of the United Kingdom Government (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)). All forms of companies (as permitted by the United Kingdom Companies Act) are incorporated and registered with Companies House and file specific details as required by the current Companies Act 2006. All registered limited companies, including subsidiary, small and inactive companies, must file annual financial statements, in contrast to registered unlimited companies (meeting certain conditions), in addition to annual company returns, which are all public records.

The United Kingdom has had a system of company registration since 1844. The legislation governing company registration matters is the Companies Act 2006.

England and Wales

England and Wales are treated as a single entity (companies may be "Registered in England and Wales") with a unified register, separate from those of Scotland or Northern Ireland. Companies must advise Companies House of their intended registered office (the official address of the company), which may be in England and Wales, in Scotland, or in Wales. Consequently, on incorporation, companies will be either 'Registered in England and Wales', 'Registered in Scotland', or 'Registered in Wales'. Effectively, companies in England must register in England and Wales, companies in Scotland must register in Scotland, while companies in Wales may choose to register in either England and Wales, or in Wales.

Although actual legal registration is in either England and Wales, or in Wales, according to Companies House companies must display company details in one of the following formats:

"On all company’s business letters, order forms (in hard copy, electronic or any other form) and its websites, the company must show in legible lettering: (a) the part of the United Kingdom in which the company is registered which is: For Companies registered in England and Wales either:

• Registered in England and Wales; or
• Registered in England; or
• Registered in Wales; or
• Registered in London; or
• Registered in Cardiff."

The Companies House office in Cardiff handles companies incorporated in England and Wales and in Wales. These companies are subject to English law. There is another office at Nantgarw, Wales, which contains the Compliance Unit, Prosecuting Solicitors, Late Filing Penalties and the E-Filing Team. This office does not accept postal deliveries .

The London office at Bloomsbury Street is purely a facility to file and view documents, which are then processed in Cardiff.

The Registrar of Companies for England and Wales is the Chief Executive Gareth Jones. The role of Chief Registrar is not a political one and the incumbent is a civil servant. The previous Chief Executive, Claire Clancy, stepped down from the post to take office as the Chief Executive of the National Assembly for Wales in 2006/07.

Scotland

The Edinburgh office handles companies incorporated in Scotland. These companies are subject to Scots law.

The Registrar of Companies for Scotland is Dorothy Blair. Jim Henderson was the previous registrar.

Northern Ireland

The Companies Act 2006 was fully implemented on 1 October 2009 and the Northern Ireland companies register was fully integrated into Companies House. Companies House maintains a satellite office in Belfast, headed by the Registrar of Companies for Northern Ireland.

Before 1 October 2009 all limited companies in Northern Ireland were registered with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and were subject to Northern Ireland law.

Types of companies

There are many different types of companies, including:

• Public limited company (PLC)
• Private company limited by shares (Ltd, Limited)
• Private company limited by guarantee, typically a non-commercial membership body such as a charity
• Private unlimited company (either with or without a share capital)
• Limited liability partnership (LLP)
• Limited partnership (LP)
• Societas Europaea (SE): European Union-wide company structure
• Companies incorporated by Royal Charter (RC)
• Community interest company

Register of company directors

All companies are required to appoint one or more directors (the minimum number is dependent upon the company type) and generally it is up to the members to appoint the people they believe will run the company well on their behalf. The only restrictions that prevent anyone becoming a director are they must be at least 16 and:

• they must not have been disqualified from acting as a company director (unless the court has given them permission to act for a particular company);
• they must not be an undischarged bankrupt (unless they have been given permission by the court to act for a particular company).

In February 2008, The Times and Computer Weekly broke a story that almost 4,000 of the names on the Companies House register of directors were on international watchlists of alleged fraudsters, money launderers, terror financiers and corrupt officials. The results came from Datanomic who had screened the 6.8 million names on the register against a World-Check database of high risk individuals and businesses. The exercise also revealed more than 1,500 disqualified company directors were being allowed to actively run other UK companies as Companies House was not even checking names against its own register of disqualified persons.

External links

• Official website
• Companies House list of formation agents
• List of sensitive words for UK company formation