Administrative Restorations Service

The Registrar of Companies will strike a company from the Companies House register if it fails to submit accounts or annual returns. The Registrar will also strike off a company if she believes that the company is no longer active or it fails to respond to communications from Companies House.

When a company is stuck off, it ceases to exist, and its assets become ownerless, also known as bona vacantia. Assets that are ownerless belong to the Crown. A struck-off company will lose everything it owns, for example;

Tangible Assets:

• Bank accounts in credit
• Debtors and other receivables
• Other amounts owed to it
• Land
• Buildings
• Stock
• Tax losses

Intangible assets:

• Domain names
• Websites
• Intellectual copyright
• Trademarks

The administrative restoration process:

A company that has been struck off can be restored by a process known as Administrative Restoration. An application to restore a company must be made within six years of the date it was removed from the company register. The company must also have been trading at the time it was struck off.

A Restoration applicant must write to the treasury solicitor to obtain a bona vacantia waiver letter. The treasury solicitor is asked to confirm that the Crown has no objection to the company being restored and the ownership of the assets being restored to the company. The treasury solicitor will charge £64 (£234 if the registered office of the company is in one of the Duchy estates) for dealing with the application.

If the registered office of the struck off company was within the Duchy estates (Cornwall and Lancaster) and not the Crown’s; the applicant must obtain a bona vacantia waiver letter from Duchy’s solicitors Farrer & Co. The Duchy solicitors charge £150+vat for dealing with the application. Send the waiver letter to the Registrar of Companies along with form RT01 -the application to restore a company. Companies House charge £468 for processing the restoration.

Outstanding returns, accounts and fines:

Companies House will make their consent to a company’s restoration subject to that company filing all outstanding documents, such as accounts and annual confirmation statements and to pay all unpaid fines for the late filing of accounts.

Companies that file accounts late at Companies House will incur fines as follows:

• When filed up to 1 month late - £150
• When filed between 1 and 3 months late- £375
• When filed between 3 and 6 months late - £750
• When filed more than 6 months late - £1500

These fines are doubled if accounts were filed late in previous years. When a company is struck off, the date on which it is removed is the date that counts for the submission of missing accounts.

Submissions to Companies House

Once a company has been struck off, accounts and annual confirmation statements can only be filed by post. Companies House charge £62 for processing each Annual Confirmation statement.

Administrative restoration rervice fees

Our fees for our administrative restoration service and related charges are as follows:

• Administrative restoration service -£105+vat
• Preparation of any Confirmation statements £40+vat each
• Preparation of non-trading accounts- £40+vat each
• Our charge for issuing cheques - £30+vat each