Statutory Compliance

With the day-to-day pressures involved in running a business, without an in-house company secretary it can be difficult to keep on top of your statutory compliance obligations. But Companies House filings are a vital element of the governance of your company, and it is important for this to be done accurately and on time.

What do our statutory compliance services include?

As part of Bridgehouse Company Secretaries’ statutory compliance services, we can help you file all the necessary information and documents at Companies House. These include your company’s confirmation statement and annual accounts, saving you time and helping you to avoid the penalties and repercussions of a missed filing deadline or wrongly completed form.

We can also help keep your company’s paperwork in order by dealing with event-driven fillings such as company director or secretary changes and any other notifications you have a legal obligation to file.

What are the legal requirements for filing with Companies House?

The legal requirements will vary according to your type of organisation. In other words, whether it is a charity, publicly listed company, or private limited company.

As a bare minimum, you are required to register some basic information about your company, such as the details of your directors and your official address, and file annual reports and accounts to disclose your annual income and expenditure.

Public and accountable

Registering information about your company and filing annual reports and accounts puts the information in the public domain. This ensures that anyone can discover basic facts and figures about your company. As well as complying with your statutory obligations, this also ensures that your company is run in a transparent and accountable manner.

Transparency and accountability are important elements of good corporate governance, and will help your company to run efficiently and effectively. At Bridgehouse Company Secretaries, we can advise on best practice for good governance, as well as providing a range of other company secretarial services.

Penalties

Should you miss a Companies House filing deadline it can lead to financial penalties and even sanctions. If mistakes are made in a document that is then filed at Companies House, a court order may be required to remove wrongly filed documents from the company’s public records. Avoid the expense of a court order or wrongly completed forms by consulting an expert. Bridgehouse Company Secretaries will take care of your Companies House filings and ensure that everything is filed on time and in the correct way.

What annual obligations must companies meet?

All types of organisations including private companies, publicly listed companies (PLCs), industrial and provident societies, charities and limited liability partnerships (LLPs) may be required to file a number of important documents on an annual basis.

How can Bridgehouse Company Secretaries help?

Failure to comply with the required legislation is serious – it will inevitably result in a fine and potential damage to the company’s reputation, which could harm your business.

But by outsourcing your annual compliance responsibilities to an experienced team of experts in company law, you can avoid this eventuality.

At Bridgehouse Company Secretaries, our statutory compliance services help to:

  • prepare and file all applicable returns,
  • maintain the company’s statutory registers
  • file any statutory changes with the relevant regulatory authority, and
  • submit annual accounts

Call us today on 0845 055 8260 or email contactus@bhcsecretaries.co.uk.

Annual Compliance Requirements+

Maintenance of Statutory Registers

Every company is required to keep registers of certain things and we can maintain these on your behalf:

  • Register of Directors
  • Register of Secretaries
  • Register of Shareholders
  • Register of Charges
  • PSC Register (People with Significant Control)
Annual filings

There are certain filings that need to made every year and we can take care of these on your behalf, including:

  • Confirmation statement (previously the annual return) – confirming that the information that Companies House holds about your company is correct.
  • Annual report & accounts

In response to high demand, Bridgehouse Company Secretaries has developed a full end-to-end annual compliance and register service that gives clients a hassle-free way to manage their statutory requirements.

Our service includes:
  • An experienced, named team member to look after your specific company or group of companies
  • An initial consultation and review to ensure your company is compliant and all registers and filings are up-to-date in accordance with the latest published rules
  • Due diligence and necessary information gathering
  • Inputting of details
  • Ongoing maintenance of the PSC Register – regular review points are diarised to stay on top of this

Bridgehouse Company Secretaries’ legal experts provide support for all aspects of statutory compliance.

If you’d like help in this area, please contact us.

Event Driven Compliance+

Articles of association

Apart from a voluntary change to your articles, there are occasions when you must change your constitution:

  • a change in the law means your constitution would be illegal
  • if you have been ordered to by the courts or a regulating authority (eg the Charity Commission) tells you to change it

You will need agreement from your shareholders before changing your company’s articles of association – the rules about how your company is run. This is documented in the form of a ‘resolution’. This can include changes to your company’s ‘objects’ – what your company does as a business.

Whatever the reason for amending your articles, Bridgehouse Company Secretaries can take care of all the legal niceties on your behalf including ensuring all the necessary paperwork is sent to Companies House. (Depending on the reason for the change, specific forms must often be submitted).

There are tight deadlines for submitting the relevant documentation. A copy of the resolution must be received by Companies House within 15 days of it being agreed, a copy of the amended articles of association within 15 days of them taking effect and any forms (if needed) within 15 days of the changes.

Share transfers

We can assist with share transfers, completing the necessary forms, drafting the board resolutions, providing share certificates and ensuring all documentation is compliant with your articles.

Share allotments

If your business needs to allot more shares we can handle all the paperwork – minutes, resolutions and contracts – and arrange for an advert in the national press where this is required by company law. You’ll have peace of mind knowing your board resolution is compliant, the necessary forms have been filed with Companies House and the shareholder has received a fully-executed share certificate as evidence of share ownership.

Change of share capital

We can prepare and file all resolutions regarding any change of share capital and supply new articles of association. Changes of share capital can include the creation of additional share classes, the sub-division or consolidation of shares, or a capital reduction.

Purchase of own shares

We can assist with the purchase of own shares – financed either from distributable reserves or from capital. Just leave the paperwork to us! We will produce minutes, resolutions, contracts and arrange for an advert to be placed in the national press where this is required by company law.