Is it a good idea to have your Statutory Register at Companies House?
4 November 2019
Since April 2016, private companies have been able to keep information on the public register only and can dismiss the requirement to hold official statutory records. On reflection, some officers may think that this is a good idea, but it is important to understand what will be required as often the devil is in the detail.
Current Requirements of the Statutory Register
At the moment the following information is kept within the statutory register that is maintained by the company and should be available for inspection if requested by a third party.
- Address of the Registered Office.
- Location of the Statutory Records.
- Details of the officers of the company, past and present, including their dates of birth, full names and both residential and service address.
- Details of the shareholders of the company including transfer and allotment details for any movement or issue in new shares.
- Minutes of any meetings held.
- Details of any mortgages or debentures held.
- Best practice, a copy of the current memorandum and articles of association.
As well as the above, companies will be expected to have Person with Significant Control (PSC) Register which details those shareholders that have more than 25% interest in the company. This will be maintained at Companies House and will be a public document regardless of your decision regarding the Statutory Register.
Protecting your Personal Information
By adopting to keep information on the public record, you are effectively providing all the information shown above in the current requirements section. Some of this is already maintained by Companies House, but caution needs to be taken before considering adopting the new process due to the disclosure of officers residential addresses.
Currently by maintaining your own registers means that only the service address would be on public record and the private address can be kept as such. Under the new disclosures, this would not be the case and your residential address would again be on public record.
Officers should always consider the use of a service address as protection against identity fraud and this could be either a professional contact (providing you have their permission) or this is a service that we provide to our clients to give extra piece of mind.