Company changes

The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 introduces some important company changes on 30 June 2016.

Some of the most notable are replacing the annual return with the annual confirmation statement and changes to maintain company resisters at Companies House.

The long standing and widely known form called the 'annual return' has been abolished. It contained details of the company, trading information, details of the directors and shareholders, principal business and trading information.

The confirmation statement replaces the annual return and will contain much the same information as the annual return. As we have reported in an earlier newsletter, an important addition will be the requirement to report 'people with significant control' (PSC) which is information the company should have recorded from 6 April. Some companies are not required to disclose this information.

The filing deadlines have changed as well. Note also that the statutory filing fee for filing paper mortgage forms at Companies House changed from £13 to £23 on 30 June 2016 and to file mortgage forms online the fee also changed from £10 to £15.

There are changes in relation to the company registers. From 30 June 2016 private companies can elect to keep some information on a public register at Companies House as opposed to holding this information in their own statutory registers. Whilst this may seem a sensible move which results in less administration, there are important issues to consider such as the fact that shareholder addresses will be publicly available along with the dates of birth of company directors and PSCs.

There is a lot in these new procedures to trip up those who run companies. If you would like to discuss this or any other company related issue, contact us.