Companies House late filing of accounts – COVID-19
Not filing your accounts on time will enable
Companies House to dissolve your company by compulsory strike off, along with
imposing a late filing fine.
In light of the issue’s companies are having with
keeping to filing deadlines during the COVID-19 pandemic and in order to ensure
they have time to focus on continuing to operate, Companies House has agreed it
will temporarily:
- provide an extension to accounts filing dates;
- ease strike off activity;
- treat late filing penalty appeals sympathetically – if the late delivery
of accounts was attributable to the COVID-19 outbreak; - provide a break for companies to pay late filing penalties; and
- provide additional support with payment plans for late filing penalties.
Companies who wish to utilise the three-month
extension for filing of its accounts will need to apply in advance of the
accounts date. If a company is late in requesting this extension, they
will be issued with a late filing penalty but any appeal of this penalty will
be treated sympathetically by Companies House. It is not of course
guaranteed that penalties will definitely be waived.
It should be noted that if you are granted an
extension, you must file your accounts by this new date, or you will receive a
late filing penalty. Any extension given to your filing date will also
not change your future accounts deadline date.
As Companies House are also experiencing a delay in
processing and uploading paper filings, companies are urged to file forms
electronically where available. This is also relevant if you are looking
to submit a same day application as Companies House’s current backlog does not
currently make it possible to do so.
Liberty Roberts
Corporate Commercial Solicitor
