Companies House announced this week that from 1 December 2026, objections to a limited company being struck off the register must be submitted through its online service. Objections sent by email, which has been a valid route until now, will no longer be accepted. It’s a small procedural change on paper, but it’s worth knowing about before it catches you out, because strike-off objections tend to come up at exactly the moment you can least afford a delay.

A company gets struck off the register, and effectively ceases to legally exist, either because its directors apply for voluntary dissolution or because Companies House removes it for failing to file accounts or a confirmation statement. Anyone with a legitimate interest, most commonly a creditor who’s owed money, HMRC, or another director, can object to stop that happening, usually because there’s unfinished business, like an unpaid debt or an ongoing dispute, that needs resolving first. Miss the objection window and the company disappears from the register, taking any remaining assets with it into the Crown’s hands by default.

Why this change matters more than it looks

Companies House frames this as digital transformation, and it genuinely is a smaller, quieter change than the identity verification and accounts filing reforms that have dominated its 2026 announcements. But the practical risk is real: anyone still relying on the email route out of habit, an accountant, a company secretary, a creditor’s finance team, will find their objection simply doesn’t count from 1 December onwards. There’s no grace period built in for late adopters once the date passes.

The stakes of getting this wrong aren’t abstract, either. If a legitimate objection never arrives because it was sent to the old email address, the strike-off can proceed unopposed, and any debt owed by that company becomes far harder to recover once it’s off the register. For a small creditor chasing a modest but real invoice, that’s the difference between eventually being paid and writing the amount off entirely.

What to do before December

If you’re a creditor who might ever need to object to a strike-off, get familiar with the online service now, not in December. You’ll need the company number of the business being struck off and your supporting evidence in digital format, images, Word, Excel, or PDF. Companies House says the process itself takes around five minutes once you have those to hand, but there’s no harm in a dry run before you’re doing it under time pressure.

If your business regularly deals with company strike-offs, update your internal process documentation now. Anyone still pointing colleagues or clients to an email address for this will be giving out advice that stops working the day the change lands.

If you can’t use the online service, for accessibility or other reasons, Companies House says it will provide alternative arrangements on request. Don’t assume you’re simply locked out, contact them directly to arrange support before you need it in a hurry.

The bigger pattern

This is the latest in a steady run of Companies House digitisation moves this year, alongside identity verification requirements and changes to accounts filing. None of them are individually dramatic, but together they represent a register that increasingly assumes everyone interacting with it, directors, creditors, and advisers alike, is doing so online by default. If your business or your advisers still lean on paper or email processes for anything involving Companies House, this is a reasonable prompt to check what else might be quietly changing under you.

If your business relies on outside advisers for Companies House filings or disputes, this is a reasonable moment to check they’re across the register’s current processes generally, not just this one change. Smallprint publishes template guidance for routine company administration, including creditor and director paperwork, where a small process gap like this one tends to surface.

The takeaway

Nothing about objecting to a strike-off gets harder in December, it just moves entirely online. The only real risk is not knowing that until you need to object and discover the email you’d normally send simply doesn’t work any more. Five minutes checking the online service now saves a scramble later.