%20RESIZE.jpg)
Our approach
What company secretarial work covers
Every UK company has ongoing legal obligations that run in the background of the business. Annual confirmation statements filed at Companies House. Appointments and resignations of directors and secretaries. Share allotments and transfers. Changes to the articles of association. Maintaining the statutory registers. These aren't optional extras: they're legal requirements with real deadlines, and getting them wrong carries penalties.
The consequences of neglect go beyond fines. When a business is sold, raises investment or brings in a new shareholder, buyers and investors run Companies House checks as part of due diligence. A corporate register that's out of date or inconsistent with the company's actual share structure can hold up a transaction, require remediation work, or raise questions about how the business has been run. Clean records matter, and maintaining them properly from the outset is far easier than fixing them under deal pressure.
%20RESIZE.jpg)
How we work with you
Company secretarial support from Tend Legal works on a subscription basis: a fixed monthly or annual fee in return for us taking ownership of your statutory obligations. You don't need to track filing deadlines or remember what needs to be submitted. When a corporate event happens (a new director joins, shares are transferred, the articles need updating), you tell us and we deal with it. It all feeds into the subscription rather than generating a separate bill each time.
We set the company up on an online platform where directors and shareholders can log in, view the company's records, approve resolutions and complete signings digitally. It makes the administrative side of corporate governance genuinely efficient, cuts out the paper chase, and gives everyone visibility of where things stand. The same platform works well when you're going through an investment round, making it easy to coordinate approvals across multiple shareholders quickly.
Because we're solicitors rather than a filing service, we bring legal judgement to the work. If something needs to be done in a particular way for it to be valid, or if a proposed change to the share structure has implications you should think through, we'll flag it. The subscription includes that layer of advice, not just the filing.
What the subscription covers and what it costs depends on your company: its size, the complexity of its shareholding structure, and how much activity we expect during the year. For some businesses, that means maintaining the registers, filing the annual confirmation statement and registering changes as they occur. For others, the scope extends to attending and minuting board meetings, drafting bespoke resolutions and managing shareholder communications. We agree the scope at the outset and revisit it as the business evolves.
Who we work with
Businesses that tend to get the most from this subscription are tech businesses and high-growth companies with active corporate structures: companies that have completed an investment round, operate a share option scheme, or have more than a handful of shareholders. The more that happens in the corporate structure, the more value a subscription delivers.
It's also a natural fit for businesses we already act for on other corporate matters. If we've handled your investment round or your shareholders agreement, we already know your structure. Keeping company secretarial work with us means everything stays consistent, we spot anything that needs attention, and there's no briefing required when something comes up.
Case Studies
Meet the team
Craig is a corporate and commercial solicitor at Tend Legal, working with founders, business owners and leadership teams as they build, grow and protect their businesses.
He advises on a wide range of matters: mergers and acquisitions, shareholder agreements, company structures, governance and commercial contracts of all kinds. Craig also has a particular interest in intellectual property, and regularly advises on trademark and copyright matters. His IP work has included a matter involving a Premier League and England international footballer, and advising on a copyright assignment connected to a well-known album cover.
Down-to-earth and easy to work with, Craig places a strong emphasis on clear communication and making sure clients feel confident about the decisions they're making. He works closely with agency and commercial clients, acting as an accessible part of their wider advisory team.
Outside of work, Craig is a keen football fan and enjoys spending time with his family.
Neelam is a corporate and commercial solicitor with a practical, no-fuss approach to helping businesses get things done.
On the commercial side, she works with agencies, tech companies and growing businesses on the contracts that underpin their operations: drafting, reviewing and negotiating agreements across a wide range of commercial arrangements. On the corporate side, she assists overseas businesses setting up in the UK and forming UK subsidiaries, and has experience of M&A transactions and investment rounds.
Before qualifying as a solicitor, Neelam had a career in legal technology, including as Director of Global Product at LegalZoom. She brings that perspective to everything she does: a deep understanding of what good legal service looks like from the client's side, and how to deliver it.
She's also unfailingly cheerful. Even on Mondays.
When Neelam isn't at her desk, she can often be found upcycling old furniture in her shed, discovering new eateries or testing out recipes on friends and family.
From the moment she got involved in her parents' businesses at a young age, Nicole knew she had a passion for helping businesses thrive.
A corporate and commercial solicitor, Nicole focuses on the work that matters most to growing businesses: M&A transactions, investment rounds, shareholder agreements and company secretarial support. She also helps clients navigate the commercial side: negotiating and reviewing contracts, advising on joint ventures, and being a steady pair of hands through transactions of all sizes.
Nicole is also working towards an MBA, which tells you something about her character and her love of business. Her advice is grounded in commercial reality, not just legal theory.
When she's not taking care of business, Nicole likes to read, run, play tennis and attend church.
Alistair co-founded Tend Legal with Shona on a simple idea: that small and medium-sized businesses deserve the same quality of legal advice as large companies, without the large firm experience.
As a solicitor with a broad commercial practice, he advises business owners on the full range of issues that come with running and growing a company. That means employment law: advising on settlement agreements, workforce decisions and the day-to-day employment questions that land on founders' desks. It means commercial work: negotiating and reviewing contracts, supplier agreements, and the commercial arrangements that keep a business running. And it means corporate transactions: from business sales and acquisitions to investment rounds, share structures and restructures.
Before co-founding Tend Legal, Alistair was a partner at Woodfords Solicitors in South West London, where he spent over a decade building a reputation for clear, commercial advice to SMEs. He is known for his calm approach, his ability to cut through complexity, and his willingness to give a straight answer.
When not working or acting as taxi driver to his three children, Alistair can be found riding bikes or skateboards, playing various instruments, or at church.
Frequently Asked Questions
Companies House allows directors to file directly, and for a very simple company with no changes from one year to the next, the annual confirmation statement isn't complicated. But it's one more thing to track, and the deadline doesn't move because you're busy.
The bigger issue is that many company secretarial events require more than a web form. A share transfer has to be done correctly or the title to the shares may be invalid. A change to the articles requires shareholder approval in the right form. Director appointments and resignations need the right board process and filings. Doing these things informally or incorrectly is the kind of thing that surfaces in due diligence, often at the worst possible moment. Using a solicitor means it's done right the first time.
A confirmation statement (previously called an annual return) is a filing that confirms the company's basic information to Companies House: registered address, directors, shareholders, share structure, and certain other details. Every company must file one at least once every 12 months. Missing the deadline is a criminal offence and can result in Companies House moving to strike off the company.
It sounds simple, but the confirmation statement is only accurate if the underlying register is accurate. If you've had share transfers, new directors or other changes during the year that weren't properly recorded, the confirmation statement process can expose those gaps. Part of what the subscription does is keep the register current so the annual filing is never the moment you find out something has gone wrong.
Investment rounds, share option exercises, and share transfers all generate company secretarial work: new share allotments need to be properly authorised and recorded, the statutory register needs to be updated, Companies House filings are required, and the articles may need amendment. If these steps aren't completed correctly, the shares may not be legally issued and the cap table won't reflect reality.
If we're handling your investment round, we deal with all of this as part of that engagement. If you're a subscription client and the round is being handled by other advisers, we coordinate with them to make sure the company secretarial side is dealt with. Either way, keeping company secretarial with us means there's no gap between the transaction and the register.
A statutory register is the set of records a company is legally required to maintain: the register of members (shareholders), the register of directors, the register of persons with significant control, and others. These are separate from the Companies House public record, though they inform it.
The register of members is particularly important. It's the authoritative record of who owns shares in the company and in what quantities. If there's any dispute about share ownership, the statutory register is the starting point. In a transaction, buyers and investors will ask to see it. If it doesn't match the company's understanding of its cap table, that's a problem that needs to be resolved before anything can complete.
We maintain the statutory register as part of the subscription, updating it whenever a relevant event occurs. It's not glamorous, but it's foundational.
For a one-director, one-shareholder company with no employees and no plans to raise investment or sell, the administrative burden is genuinely low. The annual confirmation statement is the main recurring obligation, and it's not complicated.
Where the subscription pays for itself is when the company's structure becomes more active: when there are multiple shareholders, when investment has been raised, when a share option scheme is in place, or when the business is growing towards a transaction. If any of that applies now or is on the horizon, having proper administration in place from the start is much easier than reconstructing it later.
If you're not sure whether a subscription makes sense for your situation, tell us about your structure and we'll give you a straight answer.
We’ll tailor the scope to your needs, but at minimum, it includes managing and updating your Company registers and making any Companies House updates, including the annual confirmation statement, using the Kudocs platform.