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Companies House Suspends Your Accountant's Agent Status Before Hearing Objections

ended 13. August 2026

Accountants and bookkeepers who verify clients' identities for Companies House have to register as an authorised corporate service provider. On 11 August 2026 the registrar published, for the first time, the criteria it uses to decide whether one is fit and proper. The test “continues to apply after registration”, and can take in whether a company connected to the firm is being struck off or is in insolvency proceedings, conduct nothing to do with the client work itself. The guidance adds that keeping your anti-money laundering supervision is not enough on its own.

The catch is the sequence. Under the 2025 regulations a firm is suspended the moment the registrar gives it the notice, and the registrar must then publish that suspension and tell the firm's anti-money laundering supervisor. The 28 days to object, which the registrar can extend, protect against being removed altogether, not against the suspension that is already public. Companies House already lists 190 agents as suspended. The practice most exposed is the two-person firm with an untidy Companies House record and a dormant company drifting towards strike-off. A suspension stops it verifying anyone, so a client with a director still to check starts again elsewhere.

  1. A suspension that bites and is published before the firm can put its case: proportionate protection for the register, or punishment before the hearing?
  2. The criteria can take in the firm's own record of meeting its filing obligations to Companies House, and the state of any company connected to it. When that tips into a suspension, what happens to the clients part-way through verifying a director?
  3. What should a small practice do now to be sure it would pass, when the guidance says keeping AML supervision is not enough on its own? Do you have a client whose position this would change? If so, please give as much colour and detail as possible.

3 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Harvey DhillonVerified
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
Suspending a firm while the registrar looks into it is defensible. Publishing its name before it has answered isn't, and the registrar has no choice: the 2025 rules order it. For clients, a check the firm finished and filed still stands. That check only falls away if Companies House writes to that person directly, having good reason to think the evidence behind the check was false, misleading or deceptive on a point that mattered. That person then gets 42 days, counted from the day the notice is given, to be checked again. The director half-way through is the one who starts from scratch, because nothing in the rules lets the next agent pick up where the last one stopped. On whether you would pass, your AML supervision won't settle it. The registrar weighs how fast you put things right. So clear the late filings, sort the dormant company you forgot about, and tell Companies House when your circumstances change. If a client's director is part-way through, finish it now.
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Editor
Nouran MoustafaVerified
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
The principle is right; the sequencing is where I get uncomfortable. If a firm can be publicly suspended before it has had the chance to put its case, that can cause real commercial damage even if the issue is later resolved. For clients, the impact is immediate: if their accountant or agent can no longer verify them, they may have to stop mid-process and go elsewhere.

Small practices should treat this as a governance issue, not just an AML one. Check your own Companies House record, every connected company, overdue filings, strike-off action, insolvency issues, historic regulatory problems and anything Companies House has queried. Fix the boring admin before it becomes a regulatory problem.

The message is simple: if you are trusted to verify other people, Companies House now expects your own house to be in order.
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Editor
Tony RedondoVerified
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
Under the 2025 rules, Companies House can suspend an accountant's ACSP status on sight with no hearing and no warning, publish the penalty and alert AML supervisors. That's punishment first, process later. It wrecks reputations and halts operations instantly, and even a successful appeal inside the 28-day window can't undo the damage. Client’s mid-verification suffer most: checks freeze, directors must restart elsewhere, while late-filing penalties keep ticking. Small practices should audit their own records now and wind-up dormant entities before Companies House does it for them. Plenty reckon the safer bet is skipping ACSP registration and letting clients verify their own identity. Better that than a system plagued by poor communication and snap suspensions. Sole practitioners face prison over minor AML errors, yet real fraud sails through big institutions untouched. Companies House hitting hardest at the smallest players isn't proportionate, it's the wrong target.