Policy background Register of Overseas Entities
The Register of Overseas Entities came into effect on 1 August 2022, when most of Part 1 of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (the ECTE Act) was commenced. The Register of Overseas Entities is held by Companies House. Overseas entities owning land in the UK that are in scope of the requirements must register with Companies House and provide details about their beneficial owners. The purpose of the Register of Overseas Entities is to increase transparency in land ownership in the UK, and to reduce the threat of money laundering via UK property.
	Some changes are made to the ECTE Act via this Act in order to (i) ensure that it remains consistent with the Companies Act 2006 in those areas that "mirror" the Companies Act, and which are changed via this Act, (ii) make minor and technical changes which have come to notice since the ECTE Act received Royal Assent, and (iii) introduce new measures to improve the effectiveness of the Register.
	The changes include changes to the offences within sections 15 and 32 of the Act, which are both "false filing" offences, to maintain consistency both with each other and with a change made via this Act to the Companies Act 2006 section 1112 general false filing offence.
	A further amendment relates to the circumstances in which an overseas entity is no longer considered to be a "registered overseas entity" for the purposes of applications to register transactions with the UK’s three land registries. Currently, an overseas entity is not considered to be a "registered overseas entity" during any time that it is not compliant with the annual updating duty. The effect of this is that the land registries will not accept applications to register transactions undertaken by the overseas entity during this time. The circumstances in which this will be the case are expanded to include any time within which an overseas entity is non-compliant with the duty to respond to an information notice from the Registrar.
	Changes are also made to clarify what information forms part of the Register of Overseas Entities, and amend the meaning of a service address to maintain consistency with the Companies Acts.
	Further changes to improve the operation of the Register of Overseas Entities, and close potential loopholes include (1) requiring overseas entities to provide more information about associated trusts, including via annual updates; (2) increasing access to information on overseas ownership of property via trusts; and (3) strengthening verification of information in relation to the Register. The Act also introduces new measures to ensure that where the overseas entity’s ownership structure includes nominees, those behind the nominee must be identified.