Residents' management company accounts at Companies House: due 9 months after year end, with late penalties of £150 to £1,500 worked across twelve blocks

A managing agent looks after twelve blocks, each held by its own residents' management company (RMC). Each RMC is a private limited company with its own year end, its own accounts and its own Companies House deadline. Service charge accounts for leaseholders are one job; the company's statutory accounts are another, and a missed date there brings a penalty on the company.

What GOV.UK says

GOV.UK's page on preparing annual accounts for a private limited company says the filing deadline is 9 months after the company's financial year ends. For a first set of accounts it is 21 months after the date the company registered. The separate page on penalties for late filing sets a scale for private limited companies:

The page also covers appeals. The company must give a specific reason for filing late, with dates, and show that the circumstances were out of its control. It says Companies House will not collect the penalty while it considers an appeal, and that appeals are less likely to succeed for reasons such as an accountant's error. A line on the page about doubling for two years running sits beside text on public companies, and the page does not make clear that it reaches private companies, so this guide does not use it. The page also does not say who bears the penalty under a management agreement, so read the agreement and the RMC's articles on that.

Twelve blocks, four year ends

Suppose three RMCs end each of four financial years. Nine months after the year end gives:

So there are four filing dates a year, each with three companies due. An agent who files all three on the due date in a quarter pays nothing. The penalty scale shows what a slip costs:

• Three RMCs filed 20 days late: 3 x £150 = £450.
• All twelve filed two months late: 12 x £375 = £4,500.
• One RMC left for seven months: £1,500 for that company alone. Filing within the first month would have cost £150, so the extra is £1,350.

The scale rises with every step, and the steps are short. A company that misses 31 December and is still unfiled on 1 March has moved from £150 to £375, and passes into the £750 band after 31 March.

A calendar that prevents it

1. List every RMC with its accounting reference date, not the date the file was last worked on. The date is on the Companies House record for each company.
2. Set the due date as year end plus nine months, then put a diary note six weeks earlier for the accountant's draft and three weeks earlier for director sign-off.
3. Check first-year companies separately, since their first deadline is 21 months after registration.
4. Record who files: the agent, the accountant or a director, and who confirms it went through.
5. Keep the filing receipt in the block file, next to the service charge accounts.

The service charge side has its own dates, set out in the service charge accounts calendar. Directors have another near date in the Companies House identity verification guide, and the AGM notice guide covers the meeting at which accounts are usually presented.

Overlyft builds AI staff who join the management team and keep the company calendar: they hold each RMC's year end, work out the accounts due date, nudge the accountant and the directors at the six-week and three-week marks, and tell the property manager when a filing receipt is still missing. A person approves the filing, and the portfolio stops depending on one spreadsheet.

This is general information, not legal advice. Check GOV.UK and Companies House for a company's own deadline.