Company secretarial services that keep your Companies House filings on time.

The Companies House side of running a limited company: the annual confirmation statement, keeping the registered office and officer details current, maintaining the statutory registers, and filing changes when directors, shareholders or people with significant control alter. It also covers share allotments and transfers, changes of company name or accounting reference date, and the paperwork behind a director's resignation. It is separate from your accounts and your tax return, which go to Companies House and HMRC on different deadlines. It is included in every Buzz limited company package rather than charged as an extra.

No — private limited companies have not been required to appoint one since 2008. What has not gone away is the work. Every filing and every register remains the directors' legal responsibility, and the penalties for missing them fall on the company and, in serious cases, on the directors personally. Removing the requirement to appoint someone did not remove the duty; it just removed the person who used to remember. That is why most owners hand the administration to their accountant rather than tracking a set of dates that arrive once a year.

Annual accounts go to Companies House nine months after your accounting reference date. Corporation Tax is payable nine months and one day after the end of the accounting period, and the CT600 return is due twelve months after it — so you pay before you file, which catches people out every year. The confirmation statement is due within fourteen days of the end of your review period, which runs annually from incorporation or from the last statement. Changes to directors, PSCs or the registered office generally have to be notified within fourteen days. The key tax dates page lists the lot.

Companies House applies automatic late filing penalties on accounts, starting at £150 for a private company up to one month late and rising to £1,500 beyond six months — and they double if you also filed late the previous year. There is no discretion for a busy month. A late confirmation statement can lead to the company being struck off, which is recoverable but slow and expensive. The consequence people underrate is public: the overdue marker sits on your Companies House record where lenders, credit agencies and customers can see it long after the filing is made good.

Broadly, anyone who holds more than 25% of the shares or voting rights, can appoint or remove a majority of the board, or otherwise exercises significant influence or control. That last limb catches arrangements that are not visible on the share register — an investor with veto rights, or a person controlling shares held by someone else. PSCs go on a public register at Companies House and must be kept current within statutory time limits. Getting it wrong is a criminal offence rather than a fee, and it is now checked more actively under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act.

Ask us — it depends on the arrangement and it is agreed case by case rather than offered as a blanket service. Worth knowing before you decide: since March 2024 every company must have an "appropriate address" where documents can be delivered and acknowledged, and PO boxes no longer qualify. If you use your home address, it appears on the public register indefinitely. The trade-off with using an agent is that statutory post arrives with them rather than with you, so the arrangement only works if it comes with a reliable forwarding process.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act introduced identity verification for directors and people with significant control, phased in by Companies House. In practical terms, individuals will need to verify their identity either directly with Companies House or through an authorised corporate service provider, and companies will not be able to make certain filings for unverified officers. Nobody should be relying on "my accountant will sort it" without checking what has actually been done in their own case. We flag what applies to your company and when, rather than assuming you have read the guidance.

Included in every limited company package — the confirmation statement, the routine statutory filings and keeping the registers current. What sits outside and is quoted separately is anything structural: a share reorganisation, issuing a new class of shares, a members' voluntary liquidation, or restoring a company that has been struck off. Those need proper drafting and often a solicitor, and pricing them into a monthly fee that most clients will never use would be dishonest. If you are contemplating any of them, raise it early — the tax consequences usually matter more than the filing.