Quick summary
A confirmation statement (CS01) is only as good as the records behind it. Before filing, check your registered office, directors, people with significant control and member register, plus two more recent additions: a lawful purpose declaration and each director's Companies House personal code from identity verification.
A confirmation statement is only ever as good as the records behind it. Before you file, run through this. It's what Companies House is actually asking you to confirm, roughly in the order it tends to matter, and it pairs well with our full step-by-step filing guide if you want the process alongside the checklist, or our worked confirmation statement examples if you would rather see a completed one first.
Before you file
- Registered office. Still correct, or the flat of someone who moved out two winters ago?
- Directors. Does the list match who's actually turning up? A recent appointment or resignation needs its own filing, done properly rather than buried quietly in the statement.
- Director personal codes. Has every current director completed Companies House identity verification and got their 11-character personal code ready? This is now required on the statement itself.
- People with significant control. Has anyone crossed 25% ownership since last time, through a sale or transfer? See our guide on who that actually applies to if you're not sure.
- Register of members. Does it match who owns each share, usually tied to each flat, right now?
- Registered email. Mandatory, and wants to be an address someone actually reads.
- Statement of lawful purpose. A genuine declaration that the company's future activities will stay lawful, not a box to tick without reading.
- SIC code. Almost certainly unchanged, worth a glance regardless.
- Statement of capital, where relevant, matching shares actually in issue.
- The £50 fee. Online filing costs £50, post costs £110.
Mistakes worth avoiding
- Filing "nothing to report" on autopilot in a year a flat sold and a director quietly stepped back. Technically wrong, even if Companies House waves it through.
- Treating the registered email as a formality. An address belonging to someone who's moved on means strike-off warnings could land somewhere nobody checks.
- Assuming the ownership data is already correct. Companies House's figures are a starting point, worth verifying against your own records.
- Leaving personal codes until the last minute. Identity verification isn't instant, and a director without theirs can hold up the whole filing.
After filing
Keep a dated note of what you confirmed. Useful for board records, and genuinely handy if a sale or dispute ever needs someone to prove what the register said on a given date.
Two things routinely fail this checklist before you even start: a register of members nobody has updated, and a registered office at a flat someone sold. See the one register you still have to keep and moving the registered office.
Work through this a month before the deadline rather than during the 14 days: when is your confirmation statement due.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to re-list every shareholder every year?
No, you're confirming what's already held is accurate. A full list does get captured properly at certain points, like incorporation. Software built for Resident Management Companies, FreeholdMate included, keeps the underlying member register current year-round rather than making you reconstruct it at filing time.
Is this one director's job, or the whole board's?
Legally, every director shares responsibility, even if one person usually does the typing. A checklist only one person can see carries its own small risk, which is why giving the whole board shared access matters, and why tools like FreeholdMate give every director on the Team tab visibility into the same checklist rather than one person's private spreadsheet. See our plain-English guide to what those duties actually mean if "shared responsibility" feels vaguer than you'd like.
How does this differ from annual accounts?
Separate filing, separate deadline, each covering different ground: one confirms who runs and owns the company, the other reports its finances. Missing one doesn't excuse missing the other.