UK Offence Report

Offence of failure to comply with regulation 18

regulation 19(1) of The Principal Office Address (Rectification of Register) Regulations 2024

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

1 If a relevant person fails, without reasonable excuse, to comply with regulation 18 an offence is committed by— a the person, and b where the person is a firm, every officer of the firm that is in default.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

1 If a relevant person fails, without reasonable excuse, to comply with regulation 18 an offence is committed by— a the person, and b where the person is a firm, every officer of the firm that is in default.

What would breach regulation 19(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Principal Office Address (Rectification of Register) Regulations 2024.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£1,000
Standard scale
Level 3
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
29 February 2024
In force from
Not determined
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations make provision about the registrar’s powers to change the address registered as the principal office of company directors, secretaries and persons with significant control (“relevant persons”), where the registrar is not satisfied that the address is in fact their principal office. The Regulations allow the registrar to act on the registrar’s own motion or on application. Part 2 requires the registrar to nominate a default address for the purposes of these Regulations. Part 3 provides for applications to be made to the registrar to change a relevant person’s registered principal office address and the notice to be given about the application. Part 4 provides for the registrar to change a registered principal office address after having given prior notice to the relevant person and the relevant company. Part 5 provides for the registrar to change a registered principal office address without giving prior notice. Part 6 provides for the registrar to change a registered principal office address from one default address to another default address. Part 7 provides for appeals against the registrar’s decisions under these Regulations. Part 8 provides for the effect of changing a relevant person’s registered principal office address to a default address nominated by the registrar. Part 9 provides that a relevant person who has had their registered principal office address changed to a default address commits an offence if they do not take all reasonable steps to ensure that notice is given by the relevant company to change the address to a new address within the compliance period. No impact assessment has been prepared in connection with these Regulations.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.55.

Basis
c06_offence_committed
Confidence
0.55 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source