Posted by on 16 February 2011 | 15 Comments

From the 1 October 2009 the final provisions of the new Companies Act 2006 become effective. One key benefit is that the Act provides company directors the opportunity to provide a service address rather than their personal residential address for the  public register. 

If you are a company director this provides you with the opportunity to protect your privacy and reduce your exposure to ID fraud from 1 October 2009 by removing your residential address from the public domain. The service and residential address still need to be supplied to Companies House, however, the residential address will remain confidential to the company, the Registrar and certain specified public bodies.

You can choose any address (as long as it is not a PO Box or DX number) as the service address including your company's registered office. We would recommend that the registered office address is used where the registered office is not also the company's trading address. Where the registered office is also the trading address we would recommend an alternative service address such as your accountant or solicitor. The address must be where documents can be delivered and an acknowledgement of receipt provided if required.

The legislation also paves the way for future regulations which provide for removing the requirement for details of shareholders so that shareholders addresses are no longer disclosed. Although not yet in force this is another important development that you can take advantage of to protect your privacy and reduce your exposure to ID fraud.

Other Changes from 1 October 2009:

There are several other changes effective from 1 October 2009:

- The Registrar at Companies House will have greater powers relating to the delivery of information
- There are a number of changes to the company incorporation process
- There will be changes to all Companies House forms
- There are changes to provisions for changing company names and Articles of association
- The rules on company names will be stricter
- Public limited companies will be able to apply for voluntary dissolution
- A statement of capital must be made by all companies as part of any annual return filing
- There are changes to arrangements for inspecting a company's registers

Our company secretarial services will be fully updated with effect from 1 October 2009 including an upgrade to our online filing system to ensure our clients compliance with the Companies Act 2006. Please contact us for more information.

We already provide solutions which can help you protect your privacy in respect of shareholdings in private company's - please contact us to find out how we can help you.