New Guidance and Updated Template Registers

The register of members is one of the most important statutory registers principally because it is the definitive record of a company's shareholders and who is entitled to exercise the legal rights attaching to the shares in a company. The register will be required to be investigated as part of any share sale or investment into a company. It is vital that the register is up to date and accurately reflects the shareholding of each member.

This month we have therefore created a guidance note for customers specifically related to the register of members as well as two template forms of the register. The guidance note covers a wide range of topics, from the contents of the register to access to the register and data protection concerns about the information in the register following the GDPR.

Our two template registers (one new and one updated) are:

1. a new shorter, basic register; which includes only the statutory prescribed particulars, designed for a company with a small shareholder base and only one class of shares; and

2. an updated longer, more detailed template register; which includes the prescribed statutory particulars as well as additional information relevant to the shareholdings and aims to keep all information in one place, such as indicating that a share reorganisation has taken place and including dividend mandate instructions etc.

These templates form part of our Company Secretary and Admin group of documents and are designed for a company secretary, company administrator or a company director undertaking the secretarial role in a small private company.