Companies House changes March 24

• Greater powers to query information. This means more ability to scrutinise and reject information that seems incorrect or inconsistent with information already on the register. In some cases, the ability to remove information.

• Stronger checks on company names

• New rules for registered office addresses which will mean all companies must have an appropriate address at all times. Companies will not be able to use a PO Box as their registered office address.

• A requirement for all companies to supply a registered email address

• The requirement for all companies to confirm they’re forming the company for a lawful purpose when they incorporate. Every year, the company will need to confirm that its future activities will be lawful on their confirmation statement.

• Annotations on the register to let users know about potential issues with the information that’s been supplied

• Steps to clean up the register, using data matching to identify and remove inaccurate information

• Sharing data with other government departments and law enforcement agencies