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UK Company OSINT Research Advice

(This page was last updated on the 20/04/2024)

Searching The Free Database At UK Companies House
Whilst many sites, such as at www.companycheck.co.uk, which is free to search and www.creditsafe.com, which is a paid service (never pay anywhere near the full price) are both searchable for companies that ceased to exists many years ago, when searching the free publicly accessible UK Companies House database be aware that not all company records & directorship details are shown, as details of dissolved companies are removed from the site after 20 years.

However other information is still available. At www.company-information.service.gov.uk you can search for details of companies which were dissolved between 1989 and 2009, with lots of free information being accessible if you sign in to the site. You can also contact Companies House at +44/0 303 1234 500 or by Email for additional details. We have used this service to obtain digital copies of company documents which were nearly 40 years old, which provided really useful information not obtainable anywhere else.

Obtaining A Company Directors Date Of Birth
When carrying out a Company Directorship search, such as on the free to access UK Companies House site, you may often see a Directors date of birth only showing the Month & Year of their birth rather than their full date of birth.

This is because since the 10th of October 2015, in an attempted to protect an individual details the dates of birth having been redacted, however investigators often require an individuals full date of birth, so you can look for any Directorships of Company Documents that pre date the change, where the full date of birth will be shown.

Are Any Companies or Businesses Operating From An Address
Whilst most companies operate from commercial premises, quite often you will be researching an individual and want to know if there are any businesses operating from their address. For the UK and many other European Countries there are a number of useful free online resources that you can use.

One is the Register of Data Controllers (Data Protection Act licence holders) operated by the Information Commissioner in the UK, which allows you to search via an address or just a post code, which will return details of any businesses registered with the Information Commissioner operating from the address searched, and most if not all business should be registered with the Information Commissioner.

Another are the VAT search sites, such as at www.vat-search.eu, which allow you to search an address to see the details of any businesses registered at the address, along with any associated VAT Numbers.