Question 1

What information about my company is public at Companies House?

Accepted Answer

Considerably more than most people expect, and it is free for anyone to search — competitors, customers, journalists and members of the public included.

**What is always public:**

**Company name, number, registered office address and status.**

**Directors' names, month and year of birth, nationality, occupation and service address.** The full date of birth and residential address are suppressed on the public record, but a director's **usual residential address** is held by Companies House and disclosed in limited circumstances — and if you use your home as the registered office, that address is public.

**Persons with significant control (PSC)** — anyone holding more than 25% of shares or voting rights, or otherwise exercising significant influence. This deliberately makes beneficial ownership visible.

**Shareholders**, via the confirmation statement, including shareholdings and transfers.

**Accounts**, filed annually. Small companies and micro-entities may file **abridged or filleted** accounts, omitting the profit and loss account — which is why a small company's turnover and profit are frequently not visible while its balance sheet is.

**Confirmation statements**, mortgages and charges registered against the company, and filings such as appointments, resignations and changes of address.

**The full filing history**, including everything filed previously — nothing is removed when it changes. Past addresses, past directors and past accounts remain visible indefinitely.

**What this means practically:**

**Anyone can assess your finances**, within the limits of what you file. Customers and suppliers do this routinely for credit decisions, and so do competitors.

**Late filing is visible** and is a reputational and credit signal, as well as attracting automatic penalties.

**A home address used as a registered office is published permanently**, which is why a service address is worth paying for. Removing a previously published address is possible in limited circumstances but is not straightforward.

**Reforms under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act** have introduced identity verification for directors and PSCs and greater powers to query filings — so the accuracy of the register is being tightened.

**What is not public:** day-to-day trading, customers, contracts, employee details, and bank information.

General information, not legal advice.

Question 2

What records must a business keep, and for how long?

Accepted Answer

Enough to support every figure in your accounts and tax returns, kept for a statutory minimum period that varies by record type and jurisdiction — and the burden of proof is on you, not on the

Question 3

What does data protection law actually require of a small business?

Accepted Answer

Less bureaucracy than most small businesses fear and more discipline about basic practice than most currently apply. The obligations scale with what you do with personal data, not with your size —

Question 4

What do the three financial statements actually tell you?

Accepted Answer

Each answers a different question, and reading any one alone gives a misleading picture — which is exactly why there are three. The profit and loss account (income statement). Did we make money over

Question 5

What is the difference between articles of association and a shareholders' agreement?

Accepted Answer

The articles are the company's public constitution; a shareholders' agreement is a private contract between the shareholders. They do different jobs and most companies with more than one owner need

Question 6

What does limited liability actually protect you from?

Accepted Answer

Less than most people assume. A limited company is a separate legal person, so its debts are its own — but there are substantial and routine exceptions, and the ones that matter most are usually

Question 7

What are a company director's actual legal duties?

Accepted Answer

In the UK, seven duties are set out in statute — the Companies Act 2006 — and they apply to every director of every company, including a sole director of a small one who may never have read them. The

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