Change your registered office and company secretary
When your current provider stops answering, we step in and look after the company: registered office, secretarial work and everything the registrar expects each year.
People arrive on this page for one of two reasons. Either the firm that used to handle the paperwork has gone quiet, or a deadline has come and gone and the post about it never reached them. Both are common, and both are fixable. Tell us which company it is and we will look it up.
- Initial review at no charge
- An address that meets the new rules
- Deadlines watched all year round
- No break in service during the move
Tell us where the company stands
The more you can say about the current position, the sharper our answer will be. If you do not know what is outstanding, that is no obstacle at all — the register tells us, and reading it is our job rather than yours.
No company number to hand? Leave the field empty. The name is enough for us to find the company on the register.
You need a name for a new company
Tidying up an existing structure often means setting something else up alongside it. We will tell you whether the name you want is still free at Companies House, and how close the nearest existing names are.
Your situation does not fit a form
Several companies at once, a dispute with the outgoing provider, a company that has already been dissolved: set it out in your own words and we will take the time to answer properly.
What a registered office actually has to do
Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act an address only counts as a registered office if it is an appropriate address — one where a document delivered by hand or by post would come to the attention of somebody acting for the company, and where delivery can be acknowledged. Forwarding a bundle of unopened letters once a month does not meet that description, and a PO box never did.
- Somebody has to be thereThe test is not whether the address exists but whether service works. A person acting for the company must be able to receive a document and record its arrival, on ordinary working days.
- A registered email address as wellEvery company now keeps an email address on the record. It is not published, but it is where the registrar writes, so it needs to be one that somebody reads. An inbox nobody has opened since the accountant left is the quiet cause of a great many missed deadlines.
- If the address fails the testThe registrar may move the company to a default address at Companies House. Post sent there is not passed on, the company is asked to supply a proper address with evidence, and if it does not, the file heads towards strike-off.
- Identity verification runs alongsideThe same Act brings in verified identities for directors and for people with significant control. It is a separate exercise from the address, but it lands on the same desk, and we handle both together.
Signs that your provider has stopped doing the work
Providers rarely announce that they have given up. The service simply thins out, and the first hard evidence tends to arrive from the registrar rather than from the provider.
Letters reach you weeks after they were sent, or plainly do not reach you at all. Emails go unanswered for a fortnight. The annual renewal invoice that used to turn up every spring has not appeared, and nobody has explained why. You hear about a filing date from your bank, your accountant or a customer instead of from the firm you pay to watch it. The company's entry on the public register still shows a confirmation statement due, weeks after you were told it had been dealt with.
Any one of these on its own may mean nothing. Two or three together are worth a look at the register, and that look costs you nothing here.
What we take on, and what stays with you
Being clear about this at the start saves an awkward conversation later. The line we draw is the same for every client and we do not move it.
| Task | Who does it |
|---|---|
| Registered office and registered email address | We provide both and keep them current at the registrar. |
| Post and service of documents | We receive it, log it and pass it on the day it arrives. |
| Confirmation statement | We prepare it and file it. You confirm the content is correct before it goes. |
| Annual accounts | We file them and watch the date. Preparing them is your accountant's work, and we will say so rather than improvise. |
| Changes of director, address, shares or name | We draft and file them on your instruction, never on our own initiative. |
| Statutory registers and the PSC register | We keep them, and rebuild them where the previous provider has lost them. |
| Directors' decisions and duties | Yours. We can tell you what a filing says; we cannot decide for the board. |
| Corporation tax, VAT and payroll | Your accountant. We pass on what arrives and keep out of the numbers. |
| Disputes, contracts and anything contentious | Your solicitor, instructed by you directly. |
How the handover runs
You send us the company
Name and, if you have it, the company number. We pull the public record and see what has been filed, what has not, and whether anything has already been published in the Gazette.
You get a written finding
What we found, what needs putting right, what the registrar will charge and what we will charge. Nothing is owed at this point, and nothing happens until you say so.
Authority and the change of address
You sign the authority, we file the change of registered office and take on the secretarial work. From that day the post comes to us and the clock is being watched.
Back up to date, and kept there
We clear whatever is outstanding, then carry the company's dates forward and remind you before each one falls due rather than after.
Questions we are asked
What does the review cost?
Nothing, and it commits you to nothing. We read the public record, tell you what state the company is in and set out what it would take to put it right.
Charges begin only once you instruct us, and by then you have seen the figure in writing. Registrar's fees and any penalties are shown separately from our own fee, so you can see which is which.
What happens if the filings are already late?
Late accounts attract an automatic penalty that rises with the delay, and it doubles where accounts are late two years running. The penalty is charged to the company and cannot be argued away by explaining that a provider let you down.
A late confirmation statement carries no automatic penalty, but it is an offence, and it is the usual trigger for the registrar to begin striking the company off.
Filing late is still very much better than not filing. The sooner the record is brought up to date, the smaller the bill and the shorter the conversation with your bank.
We have had a strike-off notice. How urgent is this?
Urgent. Once the notice is published in the Gazette a period of at least two months runs, after which the company is dissolved. On dissolution its assets, including money sitting in the bank account, pass to the Crown.
While the notice stands, the striking off can be suspended by bringing the outstanding filings in. That is much quicker and much cheaper than restoring a company afterwards, which may need an application to court.
If a notice has been published, say so in the form and we will look at it the same day.
Does the previous provider have to agree?
No. The company appoints its own registered office and its own secretary, and it can change either at will. The outgoing provider is not asked and cannot object.
It is more comfortable when they hand over the registers and the correspondence. It is not essential: the record we have to work from is the public one, and we read it ourselves.
Can we move part way through the financial year?
Yes, and most moves happen exactly there. The financial year is unaffected and ends on the date it has always ended.
A move is easiest when the next deadline is still some way off. If it is close, that is a reason to move now rather than to wait — a part-finished year comes across with the company.
What do you need from us?
To start with, the company name and number. Everything else waits until you have read the finding and decided to go ahead.
For the handover itself: identification and proof of address for each director and each person with significant control, the last set of accounts that was filed, and the bookkeeping records for the current year.
If some of that has gone missing, tell us. Lost registers can be reconstructed and filed documents can be ordered back from the registrar.
Do you look after Irish companies too?
Yes. An Irish company needs a registered office in the State and, unlike a private company here, it must have a company secretary. Its annual return runs to its own return date and is a separate discipline from the one at Companies House.
Filing an Irish annual return late is expensive in a particular way: as well as the daily charge, the company loses its audit exemption for the following two years. That alone is usually reason enough to take the dates seriously.
Have the company looked at, or talk it through first
If you would rather speak to someone before filling anything in, ten minutes on the phone is usually enough to establish how urgent your case is.
Telephone UK +44 114 6972907 IRL +353 12337845 AT +43 5524 22308 DE +49 69 96759363 CH +41 58 5105770
In writing Company name check The UK limited Order online
We file documents and we watch deadlines. That is a service, not advice: we give neither legal nor tax advice. Whether your company meets its obligations under company law, and how it is taxed, is a matter for a solicitor or an accountant whom you instruct directly. We are glad to suggest people we work with.