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Corporate DocumentsWe have recently reviewed our policy on the acceptance of signatures on documents delivered to Companies House for filing, to ensure consistency throughout the different parts of the office. Signing a document implies that the signatory has considered and approved its contents. Signing an individual document is not an onerous task, but where large numbers are required, for example on incorporation documents and changes in directors forms, signing each one can take a lot of the person's time. For this reason, some presenters have developed automated systems to apply regularly used signatures.
In some cases we have rejected the documents bearing such signatures and asked for an original signature. In other cases, they have been accepted.
We have sought Counsel's opinion. This confirms that it is acceptable for an individual to authorise others to apply their signature to specific documents and this would presumably be done under conditions agreed between the parties involved.
In Companies House we accept documents in good faith as it is often not possible, nor would it always be acceptable, to verify the contents. In the light of Counsel's opinion and the increasing difficulty of distinguishing between an automatically generated and an original signature, we have concluded that it would be reasonable to treat both kinds of signature in the same way. We will, therefore, accept in good faith that documents presented for filing which have automatically generated signatures have been properly approved by the signatory. Documents will no longer be rejected simply because the signature does not appear to be original.
This change of policy does not extend to accepting documents by fax. There are a number of separate practical and administrative issues which need to be overcome, including quality control and suitability for processing. But it is something we are considering and hope to be able to provide for in the future.
Enquiries:
Phil Coates +44 (0)29 20380208 or pcoates@companieshouse.gov.uk
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