Quick summary
A registered office change is filed at Companies House on form AD01 and is free. Since the ECCTA reforms the address must be an appropriate address: somewhere a document delivered to it would come to the attention of someone acting for the company, and where delivery can be acknowledged. A PO box no longer qualifies on its own. The change takes effect once Companies House registers it.
Roughly a third of the freehold companies we look at have a registered office that is somebody's old flat. Not the building. Not a current director. The flat of the person who set the company up, who sold in 2018, and whose successors have been quietly binning post from Companies House ever since.
It is an easy thing to fix and an expensive thing to ignore, because the registered office is where the official warnings go.
What counts as an appropriate address now
The ECCTA reforms tightened this. The registered office must be a place where:
- A document addressed to the company and delivered there would be expected to come to the attention of a person acting on behalf of the company, and
- Delivery of a document there can be recorded by obtaining an acknowledgement of delivery.
In practice, for a self-managed building, the sensible options are a current director's flat, the building itself if post is reliably collected, or a professional service address. What no longer works is an unattended PO box, or an address the company has no real connection to.
Companies House can take action where an address is not appropriate, including defaulting the company's registered office to a Companies House address, which is not a situation you want to be in.
How to change it
- Agree it at board level. A short resolution is enough; minute it.
- File an AD01 through Companies House, online. There is no fee.
- Check it has updated on the public register. It is not effective until registered.
- Tell everyone else. Bank, insurer, HMRC, contractors, and anyone who writes to the company.
- Redirect the post from the old address for a period, because something always arrives late.
Note that the registered office and the registered email address are separate things, and both matter. The email address is confirmed on every confirmation statement, and it is where a lot of the practical reminders now go: see our confirmation statement checklist.
The related fix: your own home address
Changing the registered office is often prompted by a different worry, which is a director's home address sitting on the public record. Those are two separate records, and there is a separate mechanism for the personal one. We covered it in keeping your home address off Companies House.
Why this shows up in strike-off stories
The pattern is boringly consistent. The registered office is stale, so the reminder about the confirmation statement goes to a flat where nobody opens it. Then the warning goes there. Then the first Gazette notice goes there. By the time a leaseholder discovers it, usually because a sale has fallen through, the company is weeks from being dissolved.
We set out the sequence in what happens if you miss the deadline, how to read the letters in that letter from Companies House, and what to do if it has already happened in your freehold company's been struck off.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to change a registered office address?
Nothing. Filing an AD01 at Companies House is free, and it can be done online in a few minutes. The change takes effect when Companies House registers it, not when you send it.
Can the registered office be the building itself?
Yes, provided post delivered there would actually reach someone acting for the company and delivery can be acknowledged. A communal hallway with a shared letterbox that nobody empties would not meet the appropriate address test.
What happens if our registered office is a flat we no longer have any connection to?
The company is still legally served at that address, so official notices are treated as delivered even if nobody reads them. It also risks the address being challenged as not appropriate. Change it with an AD01 as a priority.