This is the least glamorous check on the site and the one most worth doing first. Every consumer right you have runs against a specific legal person. If you cannot name that person, you cannot enforce anything, and you will discover this at exactly the wrong moment.
Trading name is not legal name
The name above the door, the name on the website and the name on your card statement are frequently three different things, and none of them need be the registered name of the company you are contracting with. A trading name has no independent legal existence. It is a label used by a company, a partnership or an individual.
So the first question is simply: who am I contracting with. There are three possible answers. A limited company, which will have a company number and a Companies House record. A partnership, which may or may not appear depending on its type. A sole trader, who will not appear on Companies House at all, which is entirely lawful and very common in this field.
If the answer is sole trader, you need the individual's full name and a trading address, in writing. Businesses selling to consumers are required to give identifying and contact information before a contract is made, and this is covered in more detail in what a quotation should state before you pay.
- Open
- Companies House, the free company information service
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk - Type in
- The registered company name and number if you have been given them. If not, the trading name, then the surname of the owner if the trading name returns nothing useful.
- A good result looks like
- One active company whose name matches the one on your quotation, with a filing history, named officers, persons with significant control listed, and accounts and confirmation statements filed when due.
- An ambiguous result looks like
- A trading name that returns nothing and a business that will not tell you the registered name. Several companies with near identical names. Company status showing proposal to strike off, liquidation or administration. A quotation, a consent form and a receipt naming different entities.
- What it does not prove
- That the business is competent, safe, solvent in any meaningful sense, or insured. Companies House assesses none of these. It records filings.
- Note
- If the business is a sole trader it will not appear, which is normal. Ask instead for a full name and trading address in writing.
The fields worth reading
Company status. Active, dissolved, in liquidation, or in the process of being struck off. A company that is being struck off or is in an insolvency process is a material fact if you are about to pay a deposit or buy a course of treatment in advance.
Incorporation date. Useful only as a cross check against claims. A company incorporated eight months ago alongside a claim of twenty years of service is not necessarily misleading, because a business can restructure, but it is a question worth asking. Note also that a new company sometimes follows the dissolution of a previous one, and the filing history of related companies is public.
Registered office. Very often an accountant's address, which is normal and means nothing on its own. What it is not is proof that treatment happens there.
Officers. Current and former directors, with appointment dates. Each director's own page lists their other appointments, which lets you see the wider structure.
Persons with significant control. Who ultimately owns or controls the company. This can reveal that a clinic presenting as independent is part of a group, which is not wrong, but is a fact you might want when reading its marketing.
Filing history. Accounts and confirmation statements, filed or overdue. Persistent late filing is a small signal about administration rather than about clinical work, and should be weighted as such.
Accounts, and the trap in reading them
Small companies file abbreviated accounts. What is publicly filed is often a balance sheet and little else, with no turnover, no profit and no detail. From that you can see very little, and people routinely over read it.
The one thing worth noting is the pattern of filing rather than the numbers. Accounts filed on time, year after year, tells you the company is administered. Nothing about the figures in small company accounts should be treated as a comment on the quality of treatment.
Why this matters for every remedy you might need
Take the situations that actually arise.
- You want to exercise a right under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 because a service was not carried out with reasonable care and skill. That right runs against the trader who supplied the service. You must be able to name them.
- You want to cancel a contract concluded at a distance under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. The notice goes to the trader, and the trader's identity and address are part of what should have been given to you.
- You paid by credit card and want to raise a section 75 claim with the card issuer. The issuer will ask who the supplier was.
- You want to bring a small claim. A claim must name a defendant capable of being sued. A trading name alone is not one.
In every case, the twenty seconds you spent on Companies House at the start is the difference between a claim and a grievance. The detail of these routes is in what consumer law actually gives you.
| If you want to | You must be able to name | Where you get it |
|---|---|---|
| Claim under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 | The trader who supplied the service | Quotation, contract, Companies House |
| Cancel a distance contract under the 2013 Regulations | The trader, and an address to send notice to | Pre contract information, Companies House |
| Raise a card issuer claim on a credit purchase | The supplier paid | Receipt, card statement, Companies House |
| Bring a small claim | A defendant capable of being sued | Companies House, or the individual's own name |
| Complain to a professional regulator | The individual registrant, not the company | The practitioner's registration number |
A framework written by this publication to organise the procedure. It is not a measurement, a guideline or a regulator's classification.
Reading a group structure
Some clinics operate as one company. Others separate the premises, the staff, the equipment and the trading operation into several companies. This is ordinary commercial structuring and is not evidence of anything improper. It does have one consequence you should be aware of: the company you contract with may not be the company that owns anything.
You do not need to investigate this in depth. You need one thing, in writing, before you pay: the registered name and number of the company that will be party to your contract, with the same name appearing on the quotation, the consent documents and the receipt. If those three documents name three different entities, ask why before you pay, not after.
The limit, stated plainly
Companies House is a registry, not an inspectorate. It records what is filed and it verifies far less than most people assume. It has no view on the quality, safety or competence of any business on it, and being on it is not an endorsement.
What it gives you is identity. In a field where the same premises can be used by several practitioners with different arrangements, and where the person injecting is not always employed by the business taking your money, identity is worth having, and it is free.