Companies Act 2006 – October 2009 Implementations

Change of Company Name:

Under the new provisions coming into effect of 1 October 2009, a company can change its name by 4 methods:

resolution,
conditional resolution,
resolution from directors,
means provided in the company’s articles.

Companies must notify the Registrar by completing a notice available for each method. This notice must be accompanied by the fee.

Change of name is a part file process. The change of name is only effective when the Registrar has processed all the documentation required. Names cannot be reserved so we strongly recommend you send the documents together.

Since October 2008 a name can also be changed by the Company Names Tribunal as a result of a successful complaint for opportunistic registration.

Similar and Same Names

The rules on ‘same as’ will be stricter. For example, Companies House will disregard a number of matters if they appear at the end of the name and they are preceded by a full stop including “GB”, “services”, and “com”.

You may register a name that is the “same as” another in the registrar’s index if the company belongs or is to belong to the same group as the company already on the register and a written consent from the latter is filed at Companies House.

For company directors, if a middle name is missing Companies House has already started to automatically enter the middle name on official records to show their complete name, by matching dates of birth. This is not true for company secretaries, whose date of birth is not submitted officially.


Directors’ Service Addresses

From 1st October 2009 every director must provide Companies House with both their usual residential address, and for each directorship they hold, a service address. The service address will be on the public record and will be public information but the residential address will be protected information. A director can choose any address as the service address including the registered office address of the company. The address must be where documents can be delivered and an acknowledgement or receipt can be provided if required. The address can not be a PO Box or a DX number. If the director chooses to use his residential address as the service address the fact that the two addresses are the same would not be apparent from the public record.

The residential address will only be available to prescribed regulatory authorities such as the police and HMRC, and it may also be made available to Credit Reference Agencies.