Newcastle United 0 v Companies House 1500
Every company is required to file its annual accounts at Companies House. Public companies have to file them not later than 6 months, and private companies not later than 9 months, after their year-end. Companies House levies fines on those who fail to do this.
It was reported towards the end of January 2019 that Mash Holdings Limited, a company run by Mike Ashley (of Sports Direct, House of Fraser and Newcastle United fame), faced a fine for being six months late in filing its accounts.
While the level of fines – they start at £150 when the accounts are up to one month overdue and rise on a staged basis to £1,500 for accounts more than six months overdue – may not concern someone like Mr Ashley, they are an avoidable burden on smaller companies.
There can be a number of reasons why accounts are filed late – the reports of the Mash case suggest that they had so much going on that filing the accounts was low on the list of priorities. But the general view when a company has not filed its accounts on time is that there are questions to ask about its performance and financial stability; and avoiding that sort of adverse speculation might be a more important reason to make sure your company files its accounts on time than the amount of the fine.
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