Quick summary
A confirmation statement (CS01) confirms your building's company details with Companies House once a year. Since the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act reforms, it needs a £50 digital filing fee, a registered email address, a statement confirming the company's future activities will be lawful, and an 11-character Companies House personal code from every director who's completed identity verification.
There's a particular flavour of dread that sets in when someone on the WhatsApp group asks "did anyone do the Companies House thing?" That thing is almost always the confirmation statement: a simple annual filing that four flat owners can each quietly assume someone else has handled, right up until the year nobody has.
What a confirmation statement (CS01) is confirming
A confirmation statement, or CS01 if you are reading the form codes on the Companies House website, tells Companies House that its public records are accurate, and Companies House's own filing guidance sets out the full requirement: your directors, the registered office, the people with significant control over the company (Companies House's rather grand term for it), shareholdings, and a registered email address. It also asks you to confirm the company's future activities will stay lawful, a fresh declaration alongside the usual facts.
Nothing changed since last time? Five minutes' work. Something has changed? Sort that first.
The steps
- Check your 14-day filing window. Find your review period end date on Companies House, usually 12 months after incorporation or your last statement. You've then got 14 days from that date to submit.
- Update your records first. A flat sold? A director stepped down? File the appointment, resignation, or share transfer before you file the confirmation statement, not folded quietly into it.
- Collect everyone's personal code. Directors need to have completed Companies House identity verification and have their 11-character personal code ready to submit alongside the statement.
- Confirm the registered email and lawful purpose statement. The email needs to be an inbox someone actually monitors. The lawful purpose box is a genuine declaration, not a formality to click through.
- Submit digitally. £50 online, or £110 by post, per the Companies House fee schedule. Direct with Companies House, through an accountant, or through software built for the job.
- Keep the confirmation. Save the submission receipt and a copy of what you confirmed, for board minutes and for whoever inherits this task next.
Want the full list to work through before you submit? See our confirmation statement checklist for building directors, or, if you would rather see one filled in, our worked confirmation statement examples for a four-flat building.
Why memory is a poor filing system
Boards of a Resident Management Company turn over regularly. People move house, lose interest, or forget entirely. A confirmation statement that lives in one director's head is one bad year from becoming everyone's problem, especially with a personal code and identity verification step that didn't exist a couple of years ago. It's also exactly the pattern behind most strike-off risk we see: not neglect, just nobody left holding the date.
Two things people ask before they start: when yours is actually due, and what it costs.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an accountant to file a confirmation statement (CS01)?
No. Directors can file directly with Companies House themselves, or use software built for the job, like FreeholdMate, to keep records, personal codes and the submission itself lined up in one place.
What happens if I file it late?
There's no automatic late filing penalty the way there is for accounts, though Companies House can impose a discretionary financial penalty and we've set out what a late confirmation statement really costs in full. Persistent failure to file is also exactly how Companies House starts striking a company off, and a struck-off freeholder company can freeze property sales and lease extensions for every leaseholder in the building. See our piece on what actually happens if you miss the deadline for the full sequence. Software like FreeholdMate tracks the real due date and sends reminders well before it's a problem.
Does it require a registered email address and a lawful purpose statement?
Yes, both are mandatory fields on every confirmation statement, alongside director identity verification and personal codes. Tools built specifically for Resident Management Companies, FreeholdMate included, walk through all of it as part of the filing flow rather than leaving you to hunt down what's changed.