Professional limited company formation agents electronically filing directly with Companies House.

An officer will be any individual or company who will act as either a director, secretary or shareholder.

A private limited company is required to have at least one director and one member. For a private company at least one director must be a real person rather than a corporate officer only. A private company has the choice of appointing a company secretary or not.

A public limited company must have at least two directors and a secretary, who may be one of the directors and two members.

The directors must manage the affairs of the company in compliance with the clauses in the articles and association and abiding by the law. The secretary is the administrator of the company and is responsible for ensuring proper adherence to the regulations and company policy.

For all the officers & shareholders of the company you will need:-

• Their full name
• Directors only – Their previous names they have used in the past 20 years including a maiden name (from 1 October 2009), a second or subsequent marriage name or a change by deed poll.
• Their usual residential address for the company registers and for the Registrar, these are not available for public view.
• For Directors’ their Service address for the public registers (From 1 October 2009).  Service Address facilities are available for a small annual fee of £59 exc.VAT.
• Their Date of Birth
• Their Nationality
• Their Occupation

Officer Authentication:  If you have ever formed a company using the old paper based method then you will be aware that anyone appointed into a company must sign something at some point. This is where authentication took place for the previously entered personnel. Obviously a physical signature cannot be taken so Companies House require instead you to provided digital signatures. A digital signature is three pieces of personal information relating to each officer of the company. This is made up of any three from the following seven choices.

• First 3 letters of Town of birth e.g. LON for London
• First 3 letters Mothers maiden name e.g. JON for Jones
• First 3 Letters Eye colour e.g. BLU for Blue
• First 3 letters of fathers forename e.g. DAV for David
• Last 3 numbers of telephone number e.g. 090 for 0161 796 6090
• Last 3 digits of National insurance No. e.g. 65D
• Last 3 digits of passport number e.g. 456