At present the names and home addresses of directors of companies registered in England and Wales are publicly available. This is to change, writes Marc Jones, a solicitor at Russell Jones & Walker.

At present the names and home addresses of directors of companies registered in England and Wales are publicly available. This is to change, writes Marc Jones, a solicitor at Russell Jones & Walker.

Currently, a director’s residential address must be notified to Companies House and, for the princely sum of £1, can be obtained by any member of the public carrying out a simple online enquiry.

Clearly this information can be misused, whether by criminals, protesters, or the media, which is why the Companies Act of 1985 enabled any director to apply for a confidentiality order. But the burden, and legal expense, falls on the director to show that making his address public will create a serious risk to him and his family.

On 1 October 2009 this state of affairs will be changed. Provisions of the Companies Act 2006 will designate directors’ residential addresses as ‘protected information’, subject to certain exceptions. Companies will still be required to keep a register of directors but will only be required to record an “address for service” for each director, which can be the company’s registered address.

All companies will still have to keep a separate register of directors’ residential addresses, but it will be an offence for a company to disclose any address unless the director consents to it. In fact, companies will be expected to guard the information to avoid inadvertent but unlawful disclosures.

Companies House will still be able to disclose a director’s residential address to designated public authorities and credit reference agencies. In addition, if communications from Companies House to a director go unanswered then the court can permit Companies House to put the director’s residential address on the public register. Directors will need to be vigilant to ensure that they do not lose “protected information” status in this way.  

One significant shortcoming of the new regime – though it is one that will be eroded over time – is that it is not retrospective. Information about directors’ home addresses that is filed at Companies House or recorded on a company’s register of directors prior to 1 October will remain open to public inspection.