Your Building No Longer Has to Keep a Register of Directors

If you have ever been told your building's company must maintain a set of statutory registers in a folder somewhere, that advice was correct until quite recently and is now mostly out of date. Worth knowing, partly because it is less work, and partly because a lot of what you will read elsewhere still says otherwise.

What went

Four local registers are no longer required:

• Register of directors
• Register of directors' residential addresses
• Register of secretaries
• Register of people with significant control

The duty to keep these yourselves was replaced by a duty to file the information at Companies House, which then holds the official version.

What stayed

The register of members. This one is still a legal requirement and still has to be kept, at your registered office or at a single alternative inspection location. For a share of freehold building that is the record of who owns which share, usually tied to which flat, and it remains one of the genuinely important documents your company holds. It is also the one a buyer's solicitor will ask about when a flat sells.

What this actually changes for a building

Less than you might hope, and that is the honest answer. The information still has to be right, and it still has to reach Companies House within the same deadlines: 14 days for a director appointment or resignation, 14 days for a change of details. What has gone is the parallel obligation to write it down again in your own book.

Three practical consequences:

1. Companies House is now the record. If it is wrong there, it is wrong, full stop. There is no longer a separate "our own register" that could be the more accurate version. That raises the stakes on filing promptly.
2. The confirmation statement matters more, not less. It is the annual moment you confirm that the official record is right. Our checklist covers what to look at.
3. Keeping your own notes is now good housekeeping, not compliance. Still worth doing. A dated internal record of who held what and when is genuinely useful at a sale, at a dispute, or when someone new inherits the job. It is just no longer a legal duty.

Do not throw the old registers away

Two reasons. The register of members is still required, so if your registers live in one bound book, you still need it. And a historical record of directors and secretaries remains useful evidence of who was accountable when, which is exactly the question that comes up when something from three years ago resurfaces.

Why so much advice still says otherwise

Because the change is recent and the internet is slow. A great deal of block management and company formation content was written before November 2025 and confidently describes duties that no longer exist. If you are reading guidance on this that does not mention a date, treat it with some caution, including anything of ours published before this piece. We have gone back and corrected our own register of directors guide and PSC guide accordingly.

One register survived the change, and for a building it is the important one. See the one register you still have to keep.

This is one part of our full guide to the company secretary of a share of freehold company, which covers the whole role end to end.