Better Business with BritainOn 1st October 2009 the company administration procedures and laws were changed in the UK, partly to make the establishment and management of a company easier, and partly to recognise and regularise simplifications which had effectively been going on for a number of years.
The number of changes is many and complex, but many of these will not be affecting the readers of this newsletter. The main items to consider are: -
Authorised Capital
Most companies have only Ordinary Shares in issue, and the new regulations mean that it is no longer necessary to set a maximum limit on the number of shares to be issued by the company. Things are more complex if different classes of shares are required and we will of course be happy to give advice in this area.
The necessity to hold an Annual General Meeting has been removed, recognising the fact that this was almost always taken care of in paper form only in any event, and for EBS clients we had passed special resolutions making this unnecessary in any case.
Reducing the Share Capital in issue in a company has been made considerably easier as the expensive requirement of getting a Court Order has been removed.
Home addresses of the Company Directors
It is now possible to, on the public record at least, show the service Address of any Company Directors as the company’s Registered Office, although the real home address of the Directors must be declared to the Registrar of Companies and will be available to the statutory authorities and recognised credit reference agencies. The credit reference agencies will not however be allowed to disclose this information to their clients and can only use if for their own internal purposes in order to establish the credit worthiness of a company and its directors.
It is now possible to change the addresses on the public register for directors of companies which were formed before October 2009, and this EBS will be happy to do for its clients without charge.
However, it must be remembered that the previous home addresses which were available to the public will still be able to be found as they are on the publicly accessible part of the register when searching documents which have been previously filed.
Companies as directors of other companies
Whilst it is still acceptable for one company to be a director of a UK company, every UK Company must have at least one director who is a “real person”. We will be writing separately to any of our clients who are affected by this change.
Period to file accounts
The period allowed for the filing of accounts has been reduced by one month to 9 months after the book closing date for private companies, and 6 months after the book closing date for public companies. This change applies to all book closing dates on or after 6th April 2008.
New Companies House forms
With effect from 1st October 2009 all the Companies House forms have changed. The new forms must be used in respect of all changes which are effective on or after 1st October 2009.