Fourth leaf · folios nineteen to twenty-three

Records and registers

What is written down, where the book sits, who may ask to read it, and the day a paper is allowed to stop existing.

Leaf opens at: Folio nineteen — continued from folio eighteen
Books held at: 73 Rivington Crescent, London NW7 2LF
Requests to: studio@havenportstudio.buzz, or the office address above

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Folio twentyThe books, the shelf they sit on, and the holder’s own keeping rule

Folio six lists the registers. This folio adds, against each, where it physically sits and how long the holder keeps it. The rules below are the holder’s own and are written here so that a reader can hold the office to them.

Register of members: Bound volume at the registered office. Kept for as long as the company exists, and every superseded line with it.
Register of directors and of secretaries: Bound volume at the registered office. Kept for the life of the company. Names are not published on this site in any form.
Register of residential addresses: Held apart, in a closed file, and not produced on a request to inspect. Kept for the life of the company and then destroyed first.
Register of people with significant control: Bound volume at the registered office. Kept for the life of the company.
Register of interests held: Bound volume at the registered office, ruled as shown at folio three, with the document file beside it.
Minute book: Bound volume at the registered office. Kept for the life of the company; a minute is never amended, only followed by another.
Recharge ledger, count sheets and notes: Filed by month in the ledger box. Kept six years from the end of the accounting period the month falls in.
Correspondence register: Running ledger at the registered office. Kept six years from the date of the last entry on a matter.

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Folio twenty-oneAsking to see a register

A request is made in writing, by message to the correspondence address or by post to the registered office. It is entered in the correspondence register on the day it is read, with a folio number, and the acknowledgement quotes that number.

The request names the person or company making it, an address to reply to, the register sought, and the purpose for which it is sought.
It is entered in the correspondence register with the date of receipt and cross-referenced to the folio of the register concerned.
It is answered in writing. Where inspection is allowed, the answer gives a date and a time at the registered office, or sends a copy of the entries asked for, whichever the request asked for.
Where inspection is refused, the answer says so and says on what ground, and both the refusal and the ground are entered against the same folio.

Two things are never produced: the register of residential addresses, and anything recorded about a person beyond what a register is required to carry. A request that asks for either is answered as a refusal, with the reason written down.

The folio number in an acknowledgement is worth keeping. Quoting it in a later message ties the second message to the first entry instead of starting a second one.

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Folio twenty-twoDating an interval from a reference date

A filing date is a reference date plus a number of whole months. The sheet below does that arithmetic and shows it. It does not say what any interval is: the reference date and the number of months are entered by the reader, and this site asserts neither. Enter nothing and the sheet stays ruled and empty, which is the honest state of a sheet nobody has filled in.

Filing sheet

Calendar arithmetic only. The day of the month is kept; where the month reached is too short for that day, the last day of it is taken, and the sheet says when it has done so.

Reference date The date every interval below is counted from

Intervals, in whole months, as the reader enters them

What this line is for Months

Worked by hand the sheet reads: take the reference date; count forward the number of whole months entered on the line; keep the same day of the month, or take the last day of the month reached if that day does not occur in it; then count the days between the two dates. What interval belongs on any line is a matter for the reader and the reader’s own advisers.

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Folio twenty-threeThe day a paper is allowed to stop existing

Destruction is an event and is recorded like one. On the day a file is destroyed, a line is written in the minute book giving the date, a description of what was destroyed, the period it covered, and the rule at folio twenty under which it was destroyed. The line stays after the paper is gone, so that a gap in the shelf has an explanation on it.

Nothing is destroyed while a question about it is open: a request under folio twenty-one, a query on a recharge note, or any matter still running in the correspondence register holds the file where it is until the matter is closed and that closing is entered. Where a file is held for that reason, the reason is written on the file.

Registers that are kept for the life of the company are not destroyed at all while the company exists. If the company should ever cease to exist, they pass to whoever is then entitled to them, and the passing is itself minuted.

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