One of the services offered by Companies House helps combat fraud and protect your company from unauthorised changes to records. The free service is known as the protected online filing (PROOF) scheme and means that any forms covered by PROOF can only be filed online. Companies House will reject any paper versions of the forms and send them back to the registered office address.

The use of the PROOF scheme prevents the filing of certain paper forms, including:

• changes to your registered office address
• changes to your officers (appointments, resignations or personal details)
• your annual return

From 1 June 2021, 2 documents that are used to change a company name have been added to the PROOF service. These are:

• form NM01 (notice of change of name by resolution)
• copy of resolution (change of name by special resolution)

An application to join the PROOF scheme should be made online using the Companies House online filing service.

Source: New feed