Companies House will sometimes reject an application to incorporate a new company.

When an application to form a new company is received electronically by Companies House they will check the details for compliance with their requirements.


Should your application to incorporate a company fail, Inform Direct will advise you of this by email together with the reason why Companies House rejected it.


Note: Provided you follow the Inform Direct guidelines that appear as you complete each section of our formation wizard then your application should not fail.


Below are some reasons why Companies House may reject an application to incorporate a company.

1. The situation of the registered office does not match the Registered Office address.


To avoid this happening take care to ensure that the Registered Office address is not located in a different country. i.e. If you a forming a Scottish company the Registered Office cannot be in London and must be in Scotland.


2. The forenames of an officer (Director or Secretary) included an initial.


For example, if the name of the Director has been entered as Rupert T Bear, this will be rejected by Companies House. The complete forenames must be used.


3. The Director's occupation is unrecognised.

       

The box where you add the Director's Business occupation is a 'free text' field i.e. Whatever you type is what will be submitted to Companies House. There is no validation of what you type by Inform Direct. If you enter a Business occupation that is NOT recognised by Companies House the application to incorporate the company will fail.


Note: You cannot leave this field blank. 


4. The Country of residence given for a director does not correspond with the residential address supplied.

          

Before you give the residential address of a director you must supply their Date of Birth, Nationality, Business Occupation and Country of Residence. For both Nationality and Country of residence there is a dropdown list.


If the residential address for the director is in the United Kingdom then the Country of residence must also be the United Kingdom. Do not confuse the question of residence with Nationality. If Companies House see a Country of residence that does not correspond with the residential address they will reject the appointment and thus the application to incorporate will fail too.


5. The residential address given for a director appears to be commercial premises.


At step 2 of the formation wizard you give details of the director(s). As part of this you must provide the director's usual residential address. If Companies House think that the residential address being used is a commercial address they will reject the appointment and thus the application to incorporate will fail too.


6. Exemption from disclosing the director's residential address has been wrongly claimed.


The answer to the question:  Has the director been granted exemption from disclosing their residential address under S.243 of the Companies Act 2006? defaults to No.


Do not change this to Yes unless the director genuinely has been granted this exemption otherwise the appointment and thus the application to incorporate will fail too. Equally, if the director does have this exemption (which is uncommon) make sure it is claimed otherwise the appointment and thus the application to incorporate may fail.


What now?


If you believe Companies House were wrong to reject the application then we will gladly take up the case on your behalf. We may require evidence to support your position e.g. That the Residential address given is not commercial. We will of course let you know what is required, if anything.


Will I have to pay again?

                         

If the transaction failed because of something Inform Direct did then of course we would reimburse all the costs. However we cannot offer a low cost service if we waived our fees for failed transactions that were not of our making. Accordingly:

  • A PAYG user will not receive any refund and must pay again.
  • A subscription user using the Inform Direct presenter code will forfeit the Companies House fees paid.
  • A subscription user using their own presenter code will not be charged for a failed incorporation either by Companies House or Inform Direct.


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