Companieshouse Opiniões 

I feel like Companies House is basically an agency that encourages criminals to fraudulently register businesses in the UK. (We've personally had 5 instances of this happen to us, where a criminal is continually registering business to our address, completely without our knowledge or consent). We have complained multiple times and Companies House do nothing to deter the criminals, or even blacklist certain names. Companies House basically support the move towards the UK being a Gangsters Paradise. Enabling fraud, is essentially encouraging it. I can't understand why Companies House isn't more regulated--like other businesses. Any other business established to enable easy fraud would be investigated. Shame on Companies House and shame on the UK for making crime so easy.

This is now the THIRD time we have reported fraudulent companies being registered using our personal details by an individual we do not know: Oleg Ozoling.
Despite multiple reports, Companies House systems continue allowing these registrations to happen with apparently little to no effective verification process in place.
How, in 2026, are there still no robust safeguards to prevent repeated fraudulent activity by the same individual? With modern AI, identity verification and fraud-detection technology readily available, it is staggering that this can continue unchecked.
A simple search of this individual’s name reveals multiple suspicious company registrations across the UK and beyond. The pattern is obvious. The lack of intervention is unacceptable.
Companies House must urgently strengthen address and identity verification procedures, investigate these registrations properly, dissolve fraudulent entities, and prevent repeat abuse of the system.
At what point does failure to act become enabling fraud?

If Carlberg did unhelpful…..

Has to be the most government website out there. Confusing, not user friendly, frustrating and seemingly 2 different web sites. Also the charge you £50 just for the privilege of existing regardless of if you have traded or even if you apply to cease trading

Tried to verify my identity for Companies House, which is needed for Directors to set up companies.

I have a valid passport and valid driving licence. Was directed to GOV.UK One Login. Only one document accepted for ID verification: an HM Armed Forces Veteran Card.
I am not a veteran.
The only resolution offered? Visit a Post Office. I am currently abroad.
In 2026, the app, the website, none of it works. How can the only way to progress something as simple as ID verification be to go to the Post Office.

After decades of a reasonable service, the web filing process nearly doubled in price and hit rock bottom in terms of service.
Their new verification process sent my partner into 2 full-blown panic attacks, I just spent hours in a kafkaesque labyrinth of self referencing links after having mistyped once (once you confirm online verification you **cannot** back out and correct to go to a post office instead).
And once the two verification codes were finally done, the real pain started: The old logon no longer works, and directors need to log on via Gov.com. Unfortunate side effect: All company information is initially "lost" and the instructions how to reconnect it seems to have been written by 100 monkeys on their type writers.
I should be servicing my customers rather than spending days with this nonsense.
How do these *** sleep at night?

Bunch of thieves!

I have had amazing help from a young man called Josh at companies house. I am in my eighties and found everything so confusing but this young man called Josh really helped

Received a letter from them via our registered address telling me our registered address wasn't compliant as mail delivered to it wasn't delivered to me. Errrr....you can see the flaw in this. The first person sounded like a toddler and mumbled. The second person could barely speak English and just talked utter nonsense.

Why do we have to battle the incompetence, and deal with their stupidity and lack of employing staff who engage and help?? Utterly useless and confusing organisation.

They told me that a letter they had sent me had been returned. No such letter was ever received. It must be news to them that Royal Mail screw up and this happens. 8 years with the same address and suddenly it's not compliant because of 1 letter.

I’m writing this in the hope that Companies House will see the feedback.

Staff at Companies House are generally polite, however, new changes have caused chaos, not been explained clearly (I often get contradictory info from different staff) and not well planned.

Just received an email from Companies House full of contradictions, hypotheticals and confusing jargon. Even after resorting to AI to try to make sense of it the conclusion was that the email was muddled and contradictory. In addition, in a world where technology has come along in strides I was told I ‘may’ need to send photocopies of documents in the post!

If changes are to be introduced then for goodness’ sake PLEASE be clear on what needs to happen, make sure your staff understands, and be properly prepared in terms of resources and systems for the change!

This has not been the case making changes so much more stressful than they need to be for all concerned!

Wasted 2 hours trying to incorporate a company and then got a system fault. Got round the fault as it was complaining about a valid address, but found that you cannot update this later.

Would give a score of -1 if possible.

I was let down by my experience overall. I found the website and user experience to be dreadful, poorly implemented, and overly complicated, leading to significant frustration. I encountered an issue with the service, it was dysfunctional and not fit for purpose. The customer service was a unhelpful, rude, and incompetent, with no offer of assistance other than start the process again from the beginning
No wonder there are more GOV.UK logins than there are people in the UK.

I genuinely struggle to see the value in Companies House beyond being a compulsory filing system that charges you for using it. The recent identity verification process was particularly poor - confusing, repetitive, and clearly not ready for release. I spent over a week stuck in a loop, repeatedly trying to complete verification while dealing with a system that felt buggy and untested. Support was no help at all, consisting mainly of generic, copy-and-paste responses that didn’t address the actual issues.
Having finally got through that ordeal, I then needed to file my confirmation statement - something I’ve done without issue for years using the previous WebFiling system. Unfortunately, the new system is a significant step backwards. What used to be straightforward became time-consuming and stressful, ultimately costing £50 and a considerable amount of time over the Easter weekend and the following 10 days or so.
The most frustrating part is the lack of meaningful support. Queries were misunderstood, responses were irrelevant, and instead of resolving issues, I was repeatedly warned about penalties for late filing—despite the problems clearly being caused by the system itself.
It’s hard to understand why a working system was replaced with one that is more complicated and less reliable. Basic expectations such as proper testing before rollout and adequately trained support staff don’t seem unreasonable.
At the moment, the experience feels unnecessarily difficult and poorly managed.

Twice I have sent a DS01 form with a fee and no actions has been taken. abysmal , civil servants need to get back into the office and do some work like the rest of us

The Companies House verification process through GOV.UK is dysfunctional. If the name recorded for director at Companies Hoise is not exactly as in the passport, driving licence or BRP then it is rejected and the person locked out. This may be due to an apostrophe of a S/O that is in the documens but not included at Companies House. One is then locked out and cannot use the Post Office in-person option. The GOV.UK helpline is of no help. They say they can only help if one uses Google Chrome or Firefpox as browsers and not Microsoft Edge. I do not wish to use the former two as they have conditions and disruptions that I do not like. Companies House is not able to offer a soluyion other than suggesting using ACPS, which costs. They do not provide a link on the verification page to list and do not inform anything about cost. There is nothing to ensure that after paying the same name maytch problem will not occur

The verification process is impossible for some, yet companies house don't care. They tell you that your only option is to use an ACSP which back in November might have cost each director £25. Now - due to the fact that the verification process is failing - this can cost upwards of £100 per director. If they had "Verified" their own processes prior to implementation, companies house would not now be passing on erroneous costs to cash strapped dormant companies directors. It's an absolute disgrace that they take no responsibility for their poor judgement in enforcing this process on us. Shame on you, Companies House.

Having just tried to verify and and do a confirmation statement, I can concur with literally every other reviewer on here.

Ridiculous, confusing and non performant.

Companies house, it literally sucks balls as a process.

I recently went through the online incorporation process and encountered a persistent "Service Unavailable" error when entering my co-founder's residential address. I tried five times over several hours with no success. The Companies House status page showed everything as normal, with no warning anywhere in the application journey that this feature was broken.

With no other option to progress, I used an office address as a placeholder — fully intending to correct it on approval. The next day my application was rejected for using a non-residential address.

When I called Companies House, the agent confirmed they were already aware of the bug. Yet there was no warning shown to users, and no reasonable fix was offered. The two options I was given were: pay 25% more to apply by post (over a four-day Easter bank holiday weekend), or incorporate without my co-founder and add them later – a messy workaround for something that was entirely their system's fault.

About 30 minutes after the call, I tried again and it worked – the bug had been silently fixed. The agent had no knowledge of this.

The core issue isn't just the bug – it's that a critical, known failure had no user-facing notice, and the resolution offered was entirely unreasonable. For a government service that founders depend on for something as important as company formation, this is simply not good enough.

I have filed a formal complaint and hope this review helps other founders know what to watch out for.

This is the worst front end interface on any iy system ever. Confusing, bloated, misleading and overcomplicated. It took 2 days to verify and submit a confirmation statement which used to take 10 minutes as a shuttle return. The government clearly is driving less competant IT users to suicide or massive penalties for late submission. We are still waiting for acceptance of the return, despite no changes having been made from last year.

The whole id verification process demonstrates the grossest incompetence on the part of those responsible. What could have been a straightforward process was made ridiculously complex and confusing, especially the requirement for doing everything multiple times, even though CH knows it is the same person. Why on earth a limited 14 day window, why change the login process at the same time, why a dozen other stupid things?

Then of course it turns out that the supposedly secure storage of data is wide open to the internet for months.

The most absurd system trying to verify directors and submit documentation. The CH security system won’t allow me to change the way I receive security codes. When I enquire how to resolve the issue I’m told it’s my responsibility to submit the documentation. Utterly moronic.