Is There Any Way to Validate the Personal Code Before Incorporation Submission?

Incorporation
1

We recently faced an incorporation rejection because the customer submitted an invalid Personal Code.

At the time of submission, everything else in the IN01 was correct and aligned with the XML schema. The rejection only came later, once Companies House processed the application.

Here’s the issue we’re trying to solve:

  • Is there any API, endpoint, or validation method provided by Companies House to verify a Personal Code before submitting an incorporation?

  • Or is the only validation currently done after submission, during Companies House processing?

  • Are there any best practices other software providers use to reduce rejections caused by invalid or expired Personal Codes?

From a system-design perspective, this is a weak point in the incorporation flow. A simple pre-submission validation would save time for filers, customers, and Companies House itself.

If anyone from Companies House, an ACSP, or another eFiling software provider has insight into:

  • existing validation options,

  • roadmap plans,

  • or practical workarounds,

your guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

2

There are no other validation methods. I doubt there ever will be due to the sensitive nature of the data involved and the potential to abuse any sort of Personal Code lookup.

It, like much of the data associate with formation can only be done after submission due to the nature of the checks involved, and the fact that there are some situations where the data needs manual verification. On submission (envelope) validation only ever really looks at formatting.

We haven’t changed any practices. It’s just part of our existing rejection/correction/resubmission process. Incorrect codes have been relatively rare, so any increase in rejections have been minimal.

Disclaimer: Fellow ACSP/Service Provider… not CH, so most of the above is speculation based on experience rather than anything definitive or official!