What is Companies House and its role in the UK?

Companies House: what is it? What is their function?

Companies House is a government department that is a section of the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy.

In line with the Companies Act 2006, it deals with the regulation, registration and incorporation of limited liability partnerships, private limited companies and limited companies in the UK. Companies House is a registrar dedicated to assisting businesses, the business community, and the general public. This is done by use of methods including information registration. As a result, by the time business owners register their businesses through the registrar and get incorporated, they gain protection and ownership rights.

According to the website GOV.UK., Companies House make the following address: “We incorporate and dissolve limited companies. We register company information and make it available to the public.” This clearly details that they provide services of incorporation and dissolution of businesses such as partnerships. A business director or directors may also use the Companies House services to change names of their businesses.

Where Companies House offices are based?

Companies House, the UK's official registrar of companies, is based in three countries including: Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England and Wales. A section of it is also based in London, it solely acts as a data and information hub; documents are delivered and lodged here, and search services for UK-registered limited companies are available.

What information a company needs to be registered at Companies House?

After your company's registration, you must give the following details to the Companies House registrar:

• Name of the company and its registration number
• Date of the company's registration
• Type of company
• The jurisdiction for formation of your company.
• Your company's registered office address
• Names and details of Directors, company secretaries, owners or guarantors, individuals with considerable control (PSCs), and Limited Liability Partnership members.
• Codes from the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)
• Any details to the company's data and appointments
• Confirmation statements and annual accounts
• Notifications of late or missing statutory documents
• Charges for mortgage data
• Insolvency information
• Details of mandatory or voluntary strike-off
• Directors who have been relieved of service
• Information on any companies that have undergone dissolution or change.

What are the businesses that can be incorporated at Companies House?

The incorporation of limited companies or partnerships is overseen by Companies House. A limited company can be registered online via the Web Incorporation Service or a company formation representative (agent). On the other hand, you can register a company by mail using a paper application form. Unincorporated business arrangements such as general partnerships and sole traders are never handled by Companies House.

Following Brexit, Societates Europaeae which was among companies that could be incorporated by the Companies House, can no longer be founded in the UK, with any SEs still registered in the UK on January 1, 2021 being automatically required to change to UK Societates.

What are the most important responsibilities of Companies House?

Companies House has several responsibilities to fulfill. Let’s find out what they are:

• The act of registration, incorporation and dissolution of limited companies is the first responsibility that should be mentioned about Companies House.
   
• Companies House is responsible for the storing and monitoring of company data, as well as providing a platform for access and updating your firm's information. Businesses can use a software filing package to send Companies House information through their eXtensible Markup Language (XML) gateway. It is also responsible for submitting annual accounts and confirmation statements. Tax returns services are done with HMRC instead of Companies House.
   
• It makes business information accessible to the public and is authorized to de- register non-compliant companies and penalize company directors who violate the law. This implies they're in charge of posting information about limited companies and other entities such as limited partnerships on a website register and also providing a platform to search for business names.
   
• Companies House's ultimate role is to examine and store information on a company, since it is responsible for maintaining correct information and statistics on all limited companies registered and incorporated in the United Kingdom.

Quarterly and annual statistics on company register activity and size, as well as annual information on late filing fines, are published by Companies House.