Overdue Company Accounts Filing in Perivale — Professional Help to Bring Outstanding Filings Up to Date

These are the statutory accounts that a limited company is generally required to prepare for an accounting period and deliver to Companies House by the applicable filing deadline. Where that deadline has passed and the accounts have still not been delivered, they are treated as overdue. The relevant date differs between companies — it can depend on the accounting reference period, whether it is a first set of accounts and the company's particular circumstances — so directors should check the position recorded on their own Companies House filing history. If you are unsure whether anything is outstanding, we can review the record and confirm what needs to be prepared.

Accounts can slip past the deadline for many reasons: a director may have assumed the company was exempt because it was dormant or not trading, bookkeeping records may never have been passed to an accountant, there may have been a change of director or accountant, or the filing date may simply have been missed. Whatever the cause, the obligation to file usually remains. Overdue filing is about what is recorded at Companies House rather than whether the company has traded, so it helps to establish exactly which accounting periods are outstanding before deciding how to proceed.

In many cases, yes. Dormancy and overdue filing are separate issues. A dormant company can still have annual accounts filing obligations, and if the required accounts were not delivered by the applicable deadline, they may be overdue regardless of the company's dormant status. There may be reduced reporting requirements for a genuinely dormant company, but the position depends on the company's circumstances, its accounting period and whether the correct dormant status has been recorded, and dormancy does not automatically mean the accounts do not need to be filed.

Companies House can impose a late-filing penalty where accounts are delivered after the applicable deadline, and the scale of any penalty depends on the circumstances and the length of the delay. Delivering the outstanding accounts does not automatically remove or cancel a penalty that has already been applied, and the filing obligation and the penalty are separate matters. Continued non-compliance can also affect a company's standing on the register, and where a company has received a warning or a strike-off notice the situation may need additional advice. Generally, the sooner the position is addressed, the more straightforward it tends to be.

Yes. Paying a penalty does not satisfy the underlying filing obligation. The requirement to prepare and deliver the overdue accounts to Companies House remains, and the penalty is simply a separate consequence of delivering them late. In practice, the accounts still need to be prepared, reviewed and submitted. Any penalty appeal would be considered under the applicable Companies House rules, and whether an appeal is eligible depends on the circumstances of the case.

Where more than one period is overdue, each one generally needs to be dealt with in its own right. That usually means preparing a separate set of statutory accounts for each outstanding accounting period and delivering each set to Companies House, rather than assuming that filing one set of accounts will clear everything. Directors should also check whether there are outstanding Corporation Tax Returns due to HMRC or confirmation statements due at Companies House, since these are separate obligations and are not resolved by filing the accounts. We can review the filing history and set out what is required for each period.

Failing to meet filing obligations can lead to action by Companies House, and persistent non-compliance can increase the risk of compulsory strike-off proceedings. It does not follow that every company with overdue accounts will be dissolved — each case depends on its own circumstances — but overdue filings should not be left unaddressed. Where a company has already received a strike-off notice, or has been dissolved, the matter may need separate restoration or legal advice rather than being treated as a routine overdue filing. Delivering outstanding accounts does not guarantee that any action already under way will be halted or reversed.

Possibly, but not automatically. Some companies may qualify for the micro-entity reporting framework and prepare accounts under FRS 105, the financial reporting standard applicable to qualifying entities using that framework. Eligibility depends on factors such as the company's size, legal structure and accounting period, and an overdue company may originally have been required to prepare micro-entity accounts, small-company accounts or another applicable form of statutory accounts. We can review your circumstances, confirm the appropriate reporting framework, and prepare the outstanding accounts so that they can be reviewed and approved by the directors before delivery to Companies House.