With effect from October 2009 every director may have a service address as well as a usual residential address recorded with the Registrar of Companies. Whilst the service address will be available to the general public it is intended that the director’s residential address will only be available to public authorities and credit reference agencies. On the 1 October the director’s current residential address will automatically become their service address. However, where a director wishes to have a different service address, for example the company's registered office or perhaps our address, then it will be necessary to notify the Registrar accordingly.
The new regulations regarding the protection of directors’ residential addresses have arisen because directors may not have previously received adequate protection from harassment. It was hoped the introduction of Confidentiality Orders in 2002 would resolve the problem but the issue of nearly 7,000 orders to directors by October 2006 led the government to recognise there was a need to take further action. The new rules are being introduced to protect directors who are individuals from having their usual residential addresses disclosed to the public.
Earlier Companies Acts have made it easy for the public to find a director’s home address as there was a requirement for it to be disclosed on certain documents lodged at Companies House and made available on the public files.
The new rules now require the company and registrar to protect information about a director’s home address as well as information that the service address is the home address. On 1st October a director’s current residential address will automatically become the service address
Unfortunately the new rules are not retrospective so it does not help directors whose home addresses already appear on the public register, however the Act does try to remedy this problem by allowing directors to apply to have their homes addresses removed from the public register in certain circumstances.
In the first instance it will be necessary to identify the service address each director will want to use bearing in mind this will be public information. A suitable service address may be the registered office or if different an office of the company. The changes can then be made in the register of directors and the new register of directors’ residential addresses can be set up.
Date:23 September 2009
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