Agents: be ready to prove your address to CIPC

From this month, companies in South Africa must submit proof of their address along with several Companies and Intellectual Property Commission forms.

Under the terms of Regulation 169(1) of the Companies Regulation of 2011, all companies or external companies must continuously maintain at least one office in South Africa, and register their principal office. The CIPC is now stepping up its efforts to ensure that companies stick to this rule.

The affected application processes are:

• Registration of External Company (CoR20.1 and supporting documentation),
• Long Standard Form, Profit Companies (Form CoR15.1B and supporting documentation),
• Long Standard Form, Non-Profit Companies without members (Form CoR15.1D and supporting documentation),
• Long Standard Form, Non-Profit Companies with members (Form CoR15.1E and supporting documentation),
• Application to Convert a Close Corporation (Form CoR16.1 and supporting documents), and
• Application to Transfer Registration of Foreign Company (Form CoR17.1 and supporting documents)

The CIPC has also produced a list of acceptable proofs of address that you can find on their website.