10 red flags to check on any UK limited company

"Is this company a bit dodgy?" is one of those questions people know how to answer about individuals but not about businesses. A gut feel about a person generalises; a gut feel about a limited company doesn't.

What does generalise is a short list of structural signals visible on Companies House – signals that, individually, might mean nothing, but collectively are the pattern that warrants a company that's either troubled or operating outside standard practice. This guide walks through the ten most reliable ones, in roughly the order we check them.

Treat this as a diagnostic list, not a verdict. Any one of these in isolation is usually a conversation, not a reject. Three or more in combination is a reliable signal you should walk away or restructure the deal.

Observation, not accusation. Each of the patterns below is an observation of public register data. None of them, on its own, indicates wrongdoing. Consider each as a prompt for further verification — not a finding against the company or any individual associated with it. Where you see the short (Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.) pointer below a section heading, it refers back to this disclaimer.

1. Active – Proposal to Strike Off

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

The single clearest signal that something is wrong. A "Proposal to Strike Off" status means Companies House has formally started the process of dissolving the company – either because the company asked to be struck off (voluntarily) or because it has failed to file and is being struck off compulsorily.

In either case, do not transact. A company in proposal-to-strike-off is weeks from ceasing to exist. Once dissolved, any money you've sent becomes property of the Crown (a legal doctrine called bona vacantia). You are not getting it back.

The status is visible on the overview page. If the supplier isn't telling you about it, they either don't know (not great) or are hoping you won't check (much worse).

2. Overdue accounts or confirmation statement

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

Filing compliance is the cheapest, easiest signal on the register. Every UK company must file annual accounts and an annual confirmation statement within strict deadlines.

How overdue is meaningful?

• Up to 1 month overdue – common, not concerning. Most filings drift.
• 1 – 3 months overdue – unusual. Ask why.
• 3+ months overdue – the company is in active breach. Companies House will have sent warning letters; strike-off proposal usually follows within a few months.

Look for the red banner "overdue" on the filing history page, or the "Confirmation statement: overdue" line on the overview.

3. Director with a recurring incorporation pattern

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

The director's page on Companies House lists every UK appointment they've ever held. For a legitimate long-career director, this tells a coherent story – perhaps five or ten companies over a working life, most of them still active or cleanly resigned from.

The pattern to worry about is different:

• Many short-lived appointments (director at a company for 12 – 24 months, then resignation or company dissolution)
• A cluster of dissolutions (multiple companies struck off, ideally compulsorily)
• A recurring pattern – company A dissolved, similar-named company B incorporated at the same address a few months later

This is the recurring incorporation pattern. A failed company's assets are quietly transferred to a new entity, the old company is allowed to be struck off with its debts unpaid, and the same people continue trading under the new name. It's not always illegal – but when it is, you're usually a creditor of the old company, not the new one.

B2Verify's individual / director search shows every appointment for a director in one view, with status indicators. If you see a long list of dissolved companies, dig into the dates.

4. Address shared with many other companies

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

A handful of UK postcodes are used as the registered office for tens or hundreds of thousands of companies each. These are mainstream virtual-office providers – 124 City Road (EC1V 2NX), Wenlock Road (N1 7GU), Shelton Street (WC2H 9JQ) and a few others.

Using a virtual office is not, on its own, a problem. Start-ups, remote-first companies and personal consultancies use them routinely and legitimately. But for a counterparty verification perspective you want to know:

• Is the virtual office the only address the company has? No trading address, no website contact page, no other declared premises?
• Does the rest of the register (employee count implied by accounts, declared SIC, PSCs) match the story of a genuine operating business?

A "major UK software consultancy" whose only registered trace is one director at 124 City Road and dormant micro-entity accounts is not what the quote says it is.

5. Filing dormant accounts after stated trading activity

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

Dormant-company accounts are a specific filing type that declares the company has had no significant accounting transactions in the relevant year. If the supplier is offering you £200,000 of services and their last filed accounts are dormant, there are only three possibilities:

1. They've recently started trading and the accounts just haven't caught up yet (ask when the next set is due and what the story is)
2. They've been quietly trading without filing accounts that reflect it (illegal)
3. The entity quoting isn't actually the trading entity – someone else is doing the real work and this company is a company with limited operational presence

All three are reasons to stop and ask questions.

6. Recent registered office change

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

A change of registered office is a routine CH filing (type SAIL, CH01 or similar). Most companies change registered office once or twice in their lifetime – moving to new premises, switching accountants, consolidating with a parent.

The red flag is the rapid sequence. Two or three changes of registered office in the same year is a company that's actively managing something – possibly a creditor chase, possibly insolvency counsel, possibly simply disorganised. Either way it's a conversation.

Look at the filing history tab, filter on address changes, and count them over the last three years.

7. Multi-layer corporate ownership

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

The PSC (People with Significant Control) register is the public record of who ultimately controls a UK company. For most legitimate companies, the PSCs are individual humans – the founder, their spouse, a business partner.

Patterns to pay attention to:

• Corporate PSC only, with no declared individual ultimate owner – every PSC on the register is another company, with no named individual at the top of the chain. This is not, on its own, evidence of wrongdoing (holding companies are real), but it is deliberate opacity, and the B2Verify Trust Score deducts points for it.
• Multi-layer corporate chain – the PSC is company A, company A's own PSC is company B (often offshore), and the chain ends without ever surfacing a named human. Each additional layer is another step away from the question "who actually owns this?".
• No declared PSC and a corporate nominee as sole shareholder – technically compliant for some very-small-company structures, but almost always worth asking about.

A supplier should be able to name the human who owns them. If the answer is "our holding company in the Caymans," you are, at minimum, entering into a more complex transaction than you probably thought.

8. Multiple unsatisfied charges

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

A "charge" in Companies House terms is a security interest – typically a loan the company took out against its assets. Mortgages, invoice-finance facilities, debenture floating charges. Charges are declared publicly and each charge has three possible states: outstanding (the debt is still live), part-satisfied (partially repaid), or satisfied (fully repaid).

Outstanding charges are not a problem on their own – most trading businesses have one or two (a working-capital line, an asset-finance arrangement). What matters is:

• Number. A small company with five or six outstanding charges is heavily leveraged.
• Age. A decade-old outstanding charge is either a long-term mortgage (fine) or a debt that never got repaid but never got properly registered as satisfied (sometimes fine, sometimes a warning sign).
• Charge holder. Multiple invoice-finance facilities from different lenders suggests the company shuffles between funders when each one gets uncomfortable with the exposure.

The "Charges" tab on Companies House lists every charge the company has ever registered, with status.

9. Incorporation date vs trading claim

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

Compare the incorporation date on Companies House with the trading history the company claims. A "25-year-established specialist" with a company incorporated in 2023 is not a 25-year-established specialist – they might be a rebrand, they might have moved their trade into a new entity for tax reasons, or they might be inventing the trading history entirely.

Ask the question directly. If the answer is "we restructured in 2023, but the founders have been in this industry since 2000," that's often fine – but you want to understand which entity's reputation you're relying on, and which entity is actually signing the contract.

10. Trading name not matching registered name

(Observation, not accusation — see top of guide.)

The final check, and the one most people never do. The registered name on Companies House must match the name on the invoice, quote and contract. Exactly. Including the Ltd / Limited / plc suffix.

Patterns this section catches:

• Impersonation – the impersonator picks a real company's name with a small variation ("Amazon Services UK Limited" when the real entity is "Amazon UK Services Limited"). Either name might be real, but not the one you think.
• Trading name stand-in – the quote is in the name of a trading style ("Northern Boilers") but the contract wants to be signed with a different entity ("Holmes Heating Ltd"). Sometimes legitimate, sometimes the opening move in a payment-redirection pattern.
• A registered name that does not exist on Companies House – the quote is in a name that doesn't resolve on Companies House at all. Always warrants written verification before payment.

Check the registered name against every document. If it doesn't match, ask why in writing before you pay anything.

How many red flags is too many?

There is no magic threshold. A single Notice on an established company is not a verdict — it is a prompt to verify. Three or more Notices on a young company (incorporated <2 years) warrants written verification before significant business commitment. Use Notices in conjunction with: trading history, references, third-party reviews, and direct conversation. Patterns can occur for legitimate reasons — your verification is the final step, not ours.

Automating the whole thing

All ten red flags are visible in the public Companies House data. All ten are also surfaced on a B2Verify company page in a single view – status, overdue filings, director history, address, PSC structure, charges, incorporation date and name are all there, with each feeding into the Trust Score. The annotated walkthrough of a sample report shows what each of these looks like on a high-risk profile.

If you're checking more than a handful of counterparties a year, the five-minute-per-company saving adds up. If you're a one-person finance team or an owner-operator, checking a supplier in under five minutes is the difference between doing it properly and not doing it at all.

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Worried about a specific company? Look them up on B2Verify – you'll see every one of the red flags above in one view, free, with a Trust Score that weights them together.