Companies House Change Of Address

How To Change Your Company's Registered Office

What you need to do to change your registered office address at Companies House is to download, fill in and send off form AD01. You can do this yourself.

This is quite simple and may be done by a director or the company secretary. One need not even give the presenter's address if one doesn't wish to. A registered office is a link between an ethereal legal entity like a company and the 'real world', via a mailing address.

This is an address where legal documents may be sent e.g. from HMRC, Companies House, creditors and the like.

Otherwise, where could your company be contacted at? It's a transition from working as a sole trader or using 'trading as XYZ limited' to a greater legal presence. It's a step up into greater respectability and 'solidity'. It entails greater obligations and thus it needs a fixed address where legal correspondence may be sent to.

Also, you just need to tell people where your business is!

If your current address is no longer accessible to you, you will be missing important Companies House and HMRC notifications which could result in fines or your company being struck off without you knowing about it. You have to do certain returns within certain time periods. The letters Companies House and HMRC send are vital prompts to these being done satisfactorily.

A company can only have one registered office address, regardless of where it operates from or how many locations it may have. The registered office can be any address, except a P.O. box, so you can use the location of one of your outlets. A registered office has a separate legal meaning from a company headquarters or a main trading location.

To complete form AD01 you will be asked to provide the following:

• 
  
• Company Number - This is available from a search on Companies House Website if you've managed to lose it!;
  
• Company Name - If you've forgotten this then you may need have a little lie-down!;
  
• Amended Registered Office Address;
  
• The signature of a director authorising the amendment.
  

There is no cost to filing form AD01 if you do it direct, yourself. Note that Companies House will only accept a full postal address situated in the UK. P.O. Box addresses are not acceptable. Registered Address Ltd can supply you with both a Registered Office and a Director's Service address so that you can obscure your identity and contact details if you don't want to be bothered by marketers, snoopers or pests at your home address. It also looks better if your address reads as being in an upmarket business area and not a residential one.

 

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