Complaints procedure

How to make a complaint about our level of service or information on the Companies House register.

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The complaints process

There are 3 stages to our complaints process:

  1. The team or our contact centre.

  2. Response from customer service team.

  3. Escalation to the Head of Service Delivery.

What complaints we can help with

This process deals with complaints about:

  • the accuracy of information on the companies register
  • the level of service we’ve provided

There are separate procedures if you want to:

We do not deal with consumer rights complaints about goods or services.

How to complain about Companies House

Email your complaint to Companies House. You can also contact the manager of the team you want to complain about.

You must:

  • explain the problem
  • give as much information as you can
  • tell us what you want to happen

If we cannot resolve your complaint, email our complaints team.

What happens next

A member of our customer services team will reply in writing or by telephone within 5 working days.

If we cannot give a full response in this time, we’ll tell you what we’re doing and when you can expect a full reply. This might happen if your complaint needs more detailed investigation. We’ll give a contact name and a complaint reference number.

If you’re not satisfied

Ask us to review your complaint at the next stage of the process. You can ask the customer services team to escalate your complaint.

Senior customer service managers will review your complaint.

We may not be able to help you in some situations, for example if you’re not happy about a legal requirement and escalation will not change the outcome.

At stage 3, the Head of Service Delivery will investigate. This is the final stage and completes our internal complaints process.

If your complaint is not resolved, you can ask us to refer your complaint to the independent adjudicators. You’ll need to finish the internal complaints process before you can ask us to do this.

Our customer services team can refer your complaint. We’ll tell you about this in more detail if you reach this stage.

Independent adjudicators

The adjudicators only investigate complaints about:

  • level of service
  • mistakes
  • our complaint handling

Your complaint must be less than 6 months old.

The adjudicators cannot consider late filing penalty appeals. There’s a separate process if you want to appeal a late filing penalty.

If you’re not happy with the adjudicator’s decision, you can ask your MP to take your complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

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