All limited liability Companies and Partnerships are required to have a Registered Office address in the country of their jurisdiction. The UK jurisdictions are:
England and Wales
Scotland
Northern Ireland
The Registered Office is the official address of the company, and all official communications will be sent to that address.
Official communications are those issued by Companies House, HMRC (the UK Tax Authority) and the Courts of Law.
The Registered Office address must be a physical address, capable of having documents served on the directors. That is to say received and brought to the attention of the intended recipient, in the event of court proceedings. For this reason, it cannot be a postbox unless that is part of a complete address i.e. it has a street address and postcode.
A home address can be a Registered Office. A company using a home address is exempt from the requirement to display its name outside.
The Registered Office address will be on display at Companies House so that it is publicly available. Many database services such as 192.com publish information they extract from Companies House Web Site. So names and addresses quickly become available on the internet. For B2B (Business to Business) businesses, this may not be a problem but B2C businesses, rarely want their private addresses publicly available. Directors of B2C (Business to Consumer) businesses can attract unwanted attention.
A company can only have one Registered Office but can have many trading addresses, where it conducts its business.
A company must display its name at its Registered Office. Dormant companies are exempt from this requirement.
The Company must keep its statutory records at the Registered Office. Alternatively the company can nominate a SAIL (Single Alternative Inspection Location). Companies House must have a record of a SAIL.
A company must display its Registered Office Address on all its business stationery including invoices, web sites and emails.
