Company Law Changes: Are You Ready?

Since The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA) received royal assent in October 2023, a number of measures have since been rumoured. Companies House have now announced the below provisions that are planned to come into force on 4^th March 2024. These changes hinge on the secondary legislation passing through parliament and will not come into force before this date.

Main changes planned for 4^th March 2024:  

• New rules for registered office addresses. The changes can be broken down into two major parts:
  • Physical addresses – for many years companies have been able to use PO boxes as their registered office, this will no longer be possible. All deliveries to a company’s registered office will need to be brought to the attention of a person acting on behalf of the company and documents will be recorded by an acknowledgment of delivery. All companies with PO boxes as their registered address should seek to change this before the changes come into effect.

• • Email addresses – although this will not be available to view on the public register, companies will now be required to supply and maintain a registered email address. New companies will be required to supply this on incorporation and existing companies will be required to include this on their next annual confirmation statement.

• On incorporation, the subscribers must confirm they are forming the company for a lawful purpose. Existing companies must also confirm their intended future activities will be lawful on their annual confirmation statements. This is seen to combat the abuse of setting up companies for fraudulent purposes, as recently seen with the abuse of the government-backed bounce back loan schemes.

• Companies House will now have the ability to annotate the register when information appears misleading or confusing.

• Companies House will now have greater powers to query filings, request supporting evidence and reject filings to the register.

• There will now be stronger checks on company names and Companies House will be able to request a company change its name, and even change the name itself if the request is not followed.

These are only the start of the changes planned to come into effect through the ECCTA, with potential changes to filing requirements for SME businesses and additional identification checks on the horizon.

Get In Touch

If your business needs any support with the changes, please get in touch with your local Whitings office.

Disclaimer - All information in this post was correct at time of writing.