Stop Press! Companies House delivery date news!

There are various times when the rules refer to “sending” or “delivering” a document to Companies House. For example, to quote from our CVL reviewing checklist: "The office holder automatically vacates office upon sending the final account to the Registrar, and provided no objections have been received, they will also automatically obtain their release at the same time. While the Act refers to "sending" the notice and final account, the Rules refer to "delivering" the documents, so the safest approach is to use the date the notice is received by Companies House as being the date of vacation of office and hence release in cases where no objection is received. (Sections 171(7), 173(2)(e) & 106(3), and rule 6.28(3))."

Companies House have their own legislation that says what comprises "delivery" to them, namely when the document is received by them in a format suitable for filing. Until very recently, the only way that you could be sure when that happened was to wait until the document was filed and you could see the received label on the filed copy. We have just noticed that Companies House are not “labelling” documents received by them using their online portal and have been sent a copy of one of the emails that they now issue instead. In the email that we have seen, Companies House confirm that a document was received on a certain date and that “The document you uploaded was accepted for filing.”.

That means that from now on, you can tell when a document has been “delivered” by looking at the date submitted that is quoted in that email. In the example we have seen, the email was sent a week after the original submission, which may even be quicker that you were finding out by waiting to see the label on the filed copy. You should keep a copy of the email on file as evidence of delivery, especially where it defines your release. On balance, we are happy with the change, but it would have been nice if we had been told beforehand.