Person With Significant Control Explained

When you set up your limited company there will be a section for Person With Significant Control (PSC), this is someone who controls or owns the company. There can be one PSCs or several.

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On Companies House when you do a Company Search, you will see a section called “People” and in here there will be a tab called “Person With Significant Control”. In many companies, there is a PSC register which would correspond to what is viewable on Companies House and open to the public to see.

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When you complete your annual Confirmation Statement you will need to confirm if there have been any changes to your company including PSCs. This is how Companies House ensures the information available to the public is up to date and correct.

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What Is A Person With Significant Control (PSC)?

A Person With Significant Control is someone who meets one or more of the following conditions:

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• Someone who holds more than 25% of shares in the company.
• Someone who holds more than 25% of voting rights in the company.
• Someone who has the right to appoint or remove the majority of the company’s board.
• Someone who otherwise has the right to exercise significant control or influence. 

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What Should Be Included on a PSC Register?

Companies House have provided the following information in regard to keeping appropriate records for your PSC Register:

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• Name
• Date of Birth
• Nationality
• Country of residence
• Usual residential address (this is not displayed to the public)
• Service address
• The date they became a PSC of the company
• Which conditions of control are met
• The date you entered them into your PSC Register

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What Happens If My Company Does Not Have A Person With Significant Control?

This situation is possible and if this is the case that no one meets the above criteria, you would declare that you have no PSCs to Companies House.

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It is part of your responsibility to ensure the information provided to Companies House is correct, if Companies House believes the information provided is incorrect, they have an Enforcement Team which would be used. They will also pursue companies that have not provided PSC in their confirmation statement, if a confirmation statement has not been filed, or if the information held at Companies House needs to be checked.

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How To Check Who Is A PSC Of A Company?

If you go to the Companies House Website for Company Information you will be able to search for limited company information as it is open to the public to see. Once you have clicked on a company you will be presented with an overview screen with different tabs available.

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Overview: This shows the limited company registered address, its company status (whether it is active or dissolved), when the company was incorporated, when the company accounts/confirmation statement needs to be filed and whether they are up to date plus the nature of the business which shows what industry/line of work they are in.

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Filing History: This tab shows any changes that need to be reported to Companies House i.e the company accounts that have been filed and when, the confirmation statement, if the registered/correspondence address has been changed, PSC changes or if there is any notification for the company to close.

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People: The People has two extra tabs; 1. Officers and 2. Person with Significant Control

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1. Officers - This means the directors of the company, this tab is the default viewing option when you click on the people tab. You will be able to see the Directors within the company, their correspondence address, role, date of birth, when they were appointed, their nationality and country of residence.

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2. Persons with significant control - This is someone who meets the PSC criteria should be listed here to see on the Companies House website. Again this will show the correspondence address, when Companies House were notified of this PSC, their date of birth, nationality and the nature of their control for the company shares and voting rights.

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Charges: Some Companies will have a Charges tab, this is for any finance agreements with a holding/fixed charge against the company.

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