The Small Business and Enterprise Act 2015

The Small Business and Enterprise Act received Royal Assent on 26 March 2016 changing a company’s legal requirements, including what is filed at Companies House.  The Act has been coming into force over a number of staging dates with the most recent being April and June 2016.

Below is an outline of how the Act may affect your business and the action Perrys will take, if we are appointed to undertake Company Secretarial tasks on behalf of your company, to ensure you are compliant.

People with Significant Control Register 

Came into force in April 2016. Every company, LLP and Sole Enterprise needs to keep one as part of their statutory records. This will need to be filed at Companies House from 30 June 2016 with the Annual Confirmation Statement (see below).
A PSC is anyone that meets one or more of the following:
•    Owns more that 25% of the company shares
•    Holds more that 25% of the company’s voting rights
•    Holds the right to appoint or remove the majority of directors
•    Has the right to, or actually exercises significant influence or control
•    Holds the right to exercise or actually exercises significant control over a trust or company that meets one of the first 3 conditions
Residential addresses will still be protected at Companies House if you have opted to have a service address.
Perrys will be maintaining these registers as part of the company statutory registers for those companies  that we keep statutory registers for.

Annual Confirmation Statement 

From 30 June 2016 the annual return is being replaced by an annual confirmation statement which must be filed once every 12 months. This simply means that the information held at Companies House will need to be checked and confirmed and any amendments notified to them…. Pretty much the same as the current annual return from.
•    There is a fee but this hasn’t been published yet.
•    There is a 14 day filing deadline rather than 28 days you get for the current annual return.
•    The ‘People with Significant Control’ register will be filed with the first annual confirmation statement.
•    Penalties for late filing is as yet unknown.
Perrys will forward the company’s annual confirmation statement in the same manner as existing annual returns and will give any necessary instructions within a covering letter. 

Other Changes of Interest 

•    The strike off of companies is now accelerated. If there are no objections companies are struck off within 2 months rather than 3 after the first gazette is published.
•    Date of birth of directors is now supressed. You can only see the month and the year.
•    Companies House will look into a dispute over a registered office if a company is no longer entitled to use it. 

For further information, please feel free to contact Sam Corse corse@perry-company.co.uk.