Does a company have to tell Companies House when a charge is repaid?

No. Companies House guidance says there is no duty to notify. But it also says charges left showing as outstanding after they have been satisfied could have a negative effect on the company.

Does form MR04 remove the charge from the register?

No. The charge stays on the company's record. MR04 changes its status to satisfied, in full or in part. The history remains public.

The Companies House WebFiling help page lists satisfaction of a charge, form MR04, as carrying no fee.

Public record

The charge that was repaid but never closed

Q: Who can file MR04?

The form asks who is delivering it and their interest in the charge. Companies House gives three examples: the chargor, meaning the company; the chargee, meaning the lender; or a third party acting for either, such as a solicitor or accountant.

Borrow against your company's assets and the lender registers a charge. Repay it, and nothing happens automatically. The entry stays exactly as it was, for as long as nobody files the form that changes it — and on plenty of files, nobody ever does.

Artur VainerDirector, YORXEN LTD31 August 2026

We read Companies House files for a living, and the same thing turns up constantly: a charge registered years ago, still showing as outstanding, on a company that settled the borrowing long before. The director usually has no idea. Nothing prompted them, because nothing was supposed to.

This page explains what that entry is, why it stays, who ends up reading it, and what form MR04 does — including the part most write-ups get wrong.

What a charge actually is

When a company borrows against something it owns — invoices, equipment, property, or the whole undertaking — the lender takes security. That security is registered at Companies House and appears on the company's public file as a charge, with the date it was created and the name of the person entitled to it.

It is a normal, unremarkable feature of a trading company. A charge is not a black mark. It is a statement that at some point somebody lent this business money and took security for it.

The awkward part is what happens next.

Why it stays after the money goes back

Registering a charge is a duty with a deadline. Closing one is neither. Companies House guidance is explicit that a company does not have to tell them a charge has been satisfied — and just as explicit that charges left showing as outstanding after they have been paid could have a negative effect on the company.

So the sequence goes like this. The facility ends. The lender has been repaid and has no particular reason to file anything. The company's attention moves on. And the entry, which was correct on the day it was made, quietly stops being true.

YORXEN · life of a charge register status over time

Charge registereda duty, with a deadline

file reads: outstanding — and it is true

Debt repaidnothing is filed, because nothing has to be

no duty on anyone to act

Years later

file still reads: outstanding — and it is not true

Charge registeredA duty with a deadline. The file reads "outstanding", and it is true.

Debt repaidNothing is filed, because nothing has to be. No duty falls on the company or the lender.

Years laterThe file still reads "outstanding". The entry has not changed. The facts have.

The gap is the whole story: registration is compulsory and time-limited, satisfaction is voluntary and open-ended. Source: Companies House guidance on registering a charge and on form MR04.

Where the entry goes stale. Nothing in the process pushes anyone to close a charge once it is paid, so the record drifts away from the facts on its own.

Who actually reads it

An open charge is not hidden in an archive. It sits on the free public record, next to the company name, and it is one of the first things a certain kind of reader looks at.

A lender assessing a new facility, working out what is already secured and against what.
A credit reference agency building the file that other people buy.
A buyer, or their solicitor, doing due diligence before an acquisition.
An insurer or a larger customer running a check before signing something substantial.

None of them can tell from the register whether the borrowing is live. They see a charge with no satisfaction filed, and the reasonable reading is that it is still there. That is the cost of leaving it: not a penalty, not a flag, just a worse first impression than the company has earned.

The register does not say your borrowing is current. It says nobody has said otherwise — and to a stranger reading quickly, those look identical.

What MR04 does, and what it does not

Form MR04 is a statement of satisfaction. It tells Companies House that a registered charge has been satisfied, in full or in part.

It does not delete anything. This is the part people expect to go differently. The charge stays on the company's record permanently; what changes is its status. Anyone looking later still sees that the charge existed, who held it, and when — alongside the fact that it has been satisfied.

That is not a shortcoming. A file where entries could vanish would be worth much less to the people who rely on it. The point is to make the record current, not to make it shorter.

YORXEN · what MR04 changes the same entry, one field later

Charge code0XXXXXXX0001

Created12 March 2021

Persons entitledthe lender

StatusOutstanding

MR04

Charge code0XXXXXXX0001

Created12 March 2021

Persons entitledthe lender

StatusSatisfied in full

Everything above the status line is unchanged. The charge code, the creation date and the person entitled stay on the public record for good. MR04 moves one field, and that field is the one strangers read as "still borrowing".

Illustrative entry; charge code masked. Source: Companies House guidance on form MR04 and on registering a charge for a limited company.

One field, not one deletion. The most common misreading of MR04 is that it removes the entry. It does not — and knowing that before you file saves an unpleasant surprise afterwards.

Filing it, and the traps

MR04 can be filed online through Companies House WebFiling, through third-party software, or on paper by post. The WebFiling help page lists satisfaction of a charge as carrying no fee. Online is the quickest route.

Four things are worth knowing before you start, because each of them catches people out.

Full satisfaction cannot be undone

The form asks whether the charge was satisfied in full or in part. Register it as full, and Companies House marks the charge fully satisfied and will not accept another MR04 against it. It also cannot be informally corrected under section 1075 of the Companies Act 2006. If there is any doubt about whether the whole debt is gone, check the facility documents or ask the lender before filing rather than after.

One form per charge

A company with three registered charges and three repaid facilities files three separate MR04s. There is no combined form.

You need to identify the right charge

For charges created on or after 6 April 2013, the charge code is the identifier and it is on the public file. For older ones, Companies House asks for the creation date, the charge number where there is one, a description of the instrument, and particulars of what was charged.

An LLP uses a different form

Limited liability partnerships file LL MR04. Same idea, different form.

Who can file it. The form asks for the person delivering the statement and their interest in the charge. Companies House gives three examples: the chargor, meaning the company; the chargee, meaning the lender; or a third party acting for either, such as a solicitor or an accountant. The address given does not have to be a home address — a service address or the registered office is fine.

When not to file it

If the facility behind the charge is still live, the entry is correct and there is nothing to fix. Filing a satisfaction against a charge that still secures real borrowing would make the public record wrong in the other direction, and the lender would have something to say about it.

The honest test is simple: has this debt actually been repaid in full? If the answer is yes, the register is out of date and MR04 brings it up to date. If the answer is no, or you are not sure, leave it and find out first.

Sources

Register a statement of satisfaction (MR04) — GOV.UK
How to complete form MR04: checklist — GOV.UK
Register a charge (mortgage) for a limited company — GOV.UK
Companies House WebFiling help — fees

This is general information about public company filings, written by a company that reads the register every day. It is not legal or financial advice, and YORXEN LTD is not a lender, a broker or a financial adviser.