Business News

November 2009

Directors' service addresses

Changes introduced on 1 October mean that every director must provide Companies House with both their usual residential address, and a ‘service address’ for each directorship they hold. A director may choose any service address, including the company’s registered office or their own home address, but PO boxes or DX numbers are not permitted.

The service address will be publicly-available, but the residential address will be protected information, and even if the director chooses his home address as the service address, that would not be apparent from the public record. This is designed to answer previous concerns from directors, particularly those operating in sensitive sectors, about their home addresses being available alongside their company accounts.

Residential addresses will only be made available to prescribed regulatory authorities such as the police and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), and it may also be made available to credit reference agencies.

Existing directors’ residential addresses have remained on the register and automatically became the service address from 1 October. However, anyone whose home address was placed on the register on or after 1 January 2003 can now apply for that address to be removed.

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