How soon must I tell the regulator about trustee or address changes?

England and Wales: This page sets out the position in full — there is no statutory deadline at all; see below. Scotland: a timed statutory duty applies instead, considerably stricter than England and Wales — see below. Northern Ireland: not researched for this step; do not read the England and Wales position across.

Is there a deadline to update charity details in England and Wales?

No. Section 35(3) of the Charities Act 2011 covers the information in a charity’s register entry. It requires a registered charity’s trustees to notify the Charity Commission of changes to that information. It attaches no time limit to that duty. None. That makes it the one duty the annual compliance calendar cannot hold as a date.

Most trustees assume something company-law-shaped — fourteen days, twenty-eight days, something short and countable. The Act sets nothing. With nothing to miss, the natural conclusion is that it can wait until the annual return. You are updating things then anyway.

That conclusion is wrong. Open-ended is not the same as unenforceable. The duty is continuous.

The Commission’s double-defaulter work treats an out-of-date entry as part of the same misconduct finding as a failure to file. It is not a separate, lesser thing. An entry that is wrong for seven months is wrong for seven months, whether or not a clock was running.

Double-defaulter work is one of the things that can trigger a Charity Commission inquiry.

Scotland: 3 months for most changes, 1 month for insolvency events

Scotland does set deadlines. They are statutory, not guidance. Trustee names are now also published on the Scottish register; see record trustee details with OSCR. Under s.17 of the 2005 Act, notice must reach OSCR within 3 months of the change. This covers a change:

• to the principal office
• to any other detail in the register entry
• to the constitution

It also covers notice of one of the notifiable actions.

Two events get a shorter clock:

• a court administration or winding-up order
• the appointment of a receiver over any of the charity’s property

Those must be notified within 1 month. A third of the ordinary period, for the events where the regulator most needs to know quickly.

Which changes must be notified?

The changes to notify include:

• Trustees appointed, resigned or removed
• The charity’s principal office or correspondence address
• The charity’s name
• Changes to the governing document
• Contact details for the charity
• In Scotland, also administration or winding-up orders and receiver appointments

Changing a charitable company’s name: the order

A charitable company changing its name notifies Companies House first, then the Charity Commission, then HMRC. The sequence matters. Nothing on any of the three websites says so. The rest of the process is covered where you change your charity’s name.

Do it in a different order and you will be asking one regulator to record a name that another has not yet recognised. At best, that generates correspondence. At worst, it leaves your Gift Aid claims pointing at a body that no longer exists under that name.

A standing process for register changes

Tie each register update to the event that causes it. Whoever minutes a trustee change also updates the register entry. They do it in the same sitting, before the minutes are filed. What you need here is a standing habit, not a one-off update. The event is the only reliable trigger. The calendar is not.

Seeing trustee changes coming is the job of your trustee rotation and succession plan.

With the register entry current, the next step is to gather your annual return data.

Common mistake: batching all register updates into the annual return

It feels like the natural moment. In England and Wales, no deadline forces otherwise. But the duty is continuous, not annual. The double-defaulter inquiry treats an out-of-date entry as part of the same misconduct finding as failing to file.

Common mistake: changing a charitable company’s name in the wrong order

Nothing signals that order matters. The order is fixed: Companies House first, then the Charity Commission, then HMRC.

Worked example

Two trustees resign in June. The charity’s year end is 31 March. In England and Wales, waiting until the following January’s annual return breaches no deadline, because there is none. But the register is wrong for seven months, and the duty was continuing throughout. In Scotland the same delay breaches s.17(3) outright.