In February 2018, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published the draft Companies (Disclosure of Address) Regulations 2018, to amend company law to make it easier for directors, companies and others to remove historic residential address information from the Companies House register. This is against a backdrop of directors being twice as likely to be victims of identity fraud as well as an escalation in theft of corporate identities. The draft regulations will, among other things, make the key changes set out below and are due to come into force by the end of Summer 2018.
| Applying to have a director's residential address made unavailable for public inspection |
- The draft regulations will remove the need for directors to demonstrate that there is a serious risk of violence or intimidation due to the company's activities, before an historical residential address can be removed from the Companies House register. Going forward, directors can apply to remove their personal address and replace it with a service address on the basis of, for example, being at risk of identity theft and fraud.
- The draft regulations will allow such an application to be made with no time limit (i.e. going back as far as needed, and not only as far back as 1 January 2003 as is currently the case).
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In addition, the draft regulations will remove the current 1 January 2003 backstop date for removal of residential addresses by (i) members, former members and subscribers and (ii) any person who has registered a charge, although for these categories the need to demonstrate serious risk of violence or intimidation will remain, other than for individual members who will now be on a par with directors and can for example apply on the basis of being at risk of fraud.
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