9 reasons why Companies House reject applications

Are you planning to register your new company and want to ensure you submit it the right way?

In this blog let’s see the some of the reasons why Companies House rejects applications, and how to avoid rejections.

9 reasons why Companies House reject applications:

1. Similar Names
2. Sensitive & Offensive Names
3. Errors/Missing – Authentication Questions
4. Registered Office Address
5. Non-Residential Address
6. Nationality Input
7. Missing PSC
8. Repeated Appointment
9. 243 Exemption

Similar Names:

You cannot choose a company that’s too similar to an existing company, and in such a case your submission will not be accepted. If you get this error message from companies House you should choose a different name and resubmit it for approval.

Tip: To avoid rejection pay attention to the message companies with similar names will generally not be accepted even if the other company is LLC and you are registering a Limited by Shares (Commonly known as Limited Company) unless you either get permission from the existing company.

Note: If you own both the companies you can still register too similar names by providing documents to prove that you own the already existing company.

Sensitive & Offensive Names:

In general company names that sound like associated to the Royal Family or UK govt (The King’s Council Limited for example) for instance, will not be permitted and Companies House will always reject such submission.

Your company name cannot include any offensive terms, just make sure you avoid such terms to avoid rejection.

Errors/Missing – Authentication Questions:

This is one of those rare careless error caused during the registration. The form will require you to answer security questions, just like any other secure registration process. If you missed to answer these before submission or answered them incorrectly the submission will get rejected and you will have to correct these mistakes and resubmit it again.

Tip: You can any select 3 Questions from the given options, just make sure you don’t end up answering your “Passport Number” for the question “What’ your Mom’s Maiden name? (sounds silly, but these things happen)

Registered Office Address:

You can register a company from both Scotland or from England & Wales but just make sure that you will need to provide a valid address that’s from the region you are registering your company for. You cannot register a company in Scotland and provide a registered office address in London. This will always get rejected by Companies House.

Non-Residential Address:

Although is a very rare rejection case, this does happen sometimes when your director’s residential address is not from a residential area. Although you can use your home address as your registered office address, you cannot use your office address as the director’s residential address.

Tip: If you are concerned about address protection, your residential address is not revealed on the public records. But your director’s service address is always available in the public domain if you are concerned about privacy you can use our director’s service address to protect your address.

Nationality Input:

This one is a rare case when compared to the rest, but it does happen sometimes. You cannot add the nationality your officer (director or shareholder) manually, and doing so could get your company rejected if the entry is not valid.

To avoid rejection, you should make select the nationality of your new appointment from the drop-down list.

Missing PSC:

Errors with PSC powers is one of the common errors during submission. It’s mandatory for a UK company to declare PSC powers of the shareholders.

Note: Any shareholder with over 25% shares is considered as PSCs.

Tip: Consult an experienced accountant if you have doubts about PSC powers. At Mint we provide information on PSC and other legal registration related doubts.

Repeated Appointment:

Once again this is a rare submission error, but it does happen at times. You don’t have to appoint your self 2 times to make you as both the director and the shareholder. Reviewing your submission once more before submission will help you avoid rejection in most case.

243 Exemption:

Option S243 in the director’s appointment selection is not applicable to most directors. It’s exclusively for those director’s who are provided with an exemption from adding their residential address. Avoid it unless it’s applicable to you.

Avoid risk by going through Mint Formations, most of our company formation packages include a pre-submission review to help you avoid rejection.