21.10.09
Under the Companies Act 1985 (“1985 Act”), all companies had to file the usual residential address of all their directors and secretaries with the Registrar of Companies (the “Registrar”) and, therefore, their home addresses were available to the public. Since 1 October 2009, under the Companies Act 2006 (“2006 Act”), the filing of residential addresses for public disclosure is discretionary.
Directors may now provide a service address which will be available to the public, but the residential address will only be available on a secure register to which access will be restricted to certain public authorities and credit reference agencies. The company's register of directors, which must be available for public inspection at the company’s registered office, only needs to contain the directors' service addresses. However, the company must keep a separate register of its directors’ residential addresses at its registered office, which will not be available to public inspection.
If a director or company secretary wishes to change their address currently registered at Companies House to a service address, this can be done by filing form CH01 for directors and form CH03 for company secretaries.
This means that directors and/or company secretaries appointed on or after 1 October 2009 need never publicly disclose their residential addresses. Although directors and secretaries appointed prior to 1 October 2009 can amend their details registered at Companies House so that a service address is shown as their up-to-date address, previous filings which showed their previous addresses (e.g. forms 288a, annual returns, etc.) will still be publicly available at Companies House (unless those addresses are covered by an existing Confidentiality Order). However a person inspecting the company’s entries at Companies House will not know if the previous filings show a current address. Also a person inspecting may not be inclined to look at previous filings.
Where a director or secretary considers that there is a serious risk that he, or a person who lives with him, will be subjected to violence or intimidation as a result of his address being publicly available or the director or secretary has been employed by the Government Communications Headquarters, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service or a police force, it may be possible to apply to the Registrar to either:
· refrain from disclosing protected information to credit reference agencies (section 243 application); or
· remove address from the public record (section 1088 application).
We anticipate that it will become common practice for officers of a company to provide the company's registered office as their address for service.
Barker Gillette LLP – October 2009
Veronica Hartley is a solicitor specialising in corporate and commercial work. Telephone: 020 7299 6922.
For more information contact: Veronica Hartley on Veronica@BarkerGillette.com
Department: Company News > Corporate and Commercial
