The Companies and Limited Liability Partnerships (Protection and Disclosure of Information and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2024 were passed just before Christmas and will become effective on 27 January 2025. 

It is not uncommon to see a residential address used as the registered office of a company or listed as a director's service address but having such personal information on the public register can increase an individual's exposure to things like fraud and identity theft. The Companies (Disclosure of Address) Regulations 2009 (2009 Regulations) already allow individuals to apply to have their residential address protected in a limited range of situations using a “section 1088 application”. However, those circumstances have not previously included where a person's residential address is the current or former registered office of a company. 

These new regulations amend the 2009 Regulations, enabling individuals to make a section 1088 application where their residential address is on the register as having been a company's former registered office address. Individuals are still unable to apply for the protection of their residential address where a company is currently using it as its registered office, the reason being that a company must have a visible registered office address listed on the register.

The regulations also make analogous amendments to the Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Companies Act 2006) Regulations 2009 to offer the same opportunity to individuals who have historically used their home address as the registered office of an LLP.