COVID-19 update: Companies House filings

The Companies etc. (Filing Requirements) (Temporary Modifications) Regulations 2020 have now been enacted.

Following on from the creation of an emergency filing service in April 2020, which you can read more about here, the new Regulations, made by the Secretary of State, were published on 26 June 2020. These new regulations temporarily extend the various filing deadlines for companies, which are placed upon them by the Companies Act 2006, during the Covid-19 crisis. The intention of these new regulations is to provide breathing space for those companies who have been affected by the ongoing pandemic.

These modifications to the 2006 Act provide the following:

• the deadline for accounts and reports filing has been increased by 3 months, allowing 12 months for private companies and 9 months for public companies;
• extending the deadline for the annual confirmation statement after the end of a company’s confirmation period to 42 days, up from 14 days;
• the deadline for submitting certain notices of relevant events, including a change of director or person with significant control, is increased from 14 days to 42 days; and
• allowing 31 days to register a charge, up from the previous deadline of 21 days.

Further, the regulations have extended filing periods under the Companies Act 1985, Limited Partnerships Act 1907, Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000, The European Public Limited-Liability Company Regulations 2004, the Overseas Companies Regulations 2009 and the Scottish Partnerships (Register of People with Significant Control) Regulations 2017. 

These deadline extensions apply to deadlines that fall between 27 June 2020 (the date the regulations came into force) and the end of the day on 5 April 2021. However, the expiry of these modifications will not affect the operation of the extensions, should the period of extension have occurred before 5 April 2021.

Many may recall that in March 2020, Companies House announced that, as a temporary measure, it would be pausing the voluntary strike off process, so as to prevent companies being dissolved. This has been reviewed monthly, and following the July review, Companies House took the decision that this measure will be lifted from 10 September 2020.

The restarting of the strike off process on 10 September applies to companies who have already applied for voluntary strike off. Any company that applied to be struck off after 10 July 2020 will be subject to the normal procedure without delay. This includes a notice being published in the Gazette and if there are no objections, the company in question will be struck off in around two months’ time.

While the Covid-19 crisis continues to create challenging and uncertain times, these filing extensions should be a welcome relief for companies, who are already under vast amounts of pressure.  

If you would like more information on the Companies House filing requirements, applying for a filing deadline extension or how to apply for a voluntary strike off, please contact Rebecca Burford.