Tools & data
How to mark a repaid charge as satisfied
Repaying a secured debt doesn't update the public register on its own. Someone has to file a statement of satisfaction (form MR04). The charge then stays on the company record, but its status changes to satisfied. It can be filed months or years after the debt was cleared.
Recognition
The debt's paid off, but the register still shows it as live
A business repays a facility in full, reasonably expecting its Companies House record to show the charge as paid off. Months or even years later, it can still show as outstanding.
Why it happens
Filing a satisfaction is common practice, not a legal requirement
Once a charge is fully or partly repaid, a statement of satisfaction can be filed with Companies House at any time. There's no statutory deadline forcing it, unlike the 21-day window for registering the charge in the first place (Companies Act 2006, section 859A). It can be missed when a facility rolls into something else, a relationship manager changes, or nobody's specifically tasked with the paperwork after the money's actually settled.
How many charges are recorded as satisfied: 45.3% of the 3,560,414 charges at companies on the Companies House register on 1 November 2026 were recorded as satisfied in full. Because filing an MR04 is optional, the rest are outstanding on the register, which is not the same as unpaid: some will have been repaid with no MR04 filed. Source: our analysis of the Companies House register of charges (method, figures by year and limits).
Worth knowing: an unfiled satisfaction isn't a sign anything's wrong. It usually just means nobody's told the register the debt is gone. It can still cause real friction later: a new lender reading the register cold sees an apparently live charge and has to ask questions a five-minute filing would have avoided.
Where this fits
Form MR04, and who can actually file it
The relevant form is MR04, a statement of satisfaction in full or in part of a charge, filed under section 859L of the Companies Act 2006. It can be filed by the company itself. It doesn't require the lender to initiate it, which matters if the lender has gone quiet or simply hasn't got round to it. It can be filed online, through third-party software or on paper. Filing it does not delete the charge: Companies House says a full MR04 means "you will not remove the charge from the company record - but the status of the charge will be shown as 'fully satisfied'" (Companies House, how to complete form MR04).
Specialist insight
What the form actually needs to say
The filing has to state clearly whether the charge is satisfied in full or only in part, and for older charges (created before 6 April 2013) a different part of the MR04 form itself applies than for more recent ones. Getting this wrong, or filing a full satisfaction when only part of the debt was actually cleared, creates its own confusion on the public record, so the underlying facts need to be right before submitting, not just the paperwork completed.
Decision helper
What typically fits
If you're mid-application for new finance and an old, genuinely repaid charge is still showing, filing the satisfaction alongside the application rather than after usually avoids a new lender raising it as a question that slows things down. See borrowing with an existing debenture for the broader question of what an existing charge does and doesn't block.
Alternatives and limitations
This page covers the straightforward case: a genuinely repaid debt with no dispute about the facts. A contested satisfaction, or a charge the original lender disputes is actually repaid, is a legal question for the parties involved, not something a Companies House filing resolves on its own. Source: gov.uk, register a statement of satisfaction (MR04). See our MR04 filing checklist and deed of release request letter for the practical steps.
If this is your situation
If an old charge is slowing a new application, see borrowing with an existing debenture. Or tell us what is happening: we read what you send and reply by email.
Working through a funding decision?
If this is part of a finance question for your business, tell us what's happening and we'll tell you whether it's something we can help with.
Adam Parker
Founder of Muswell Rose Consulting Ltd, which trades as Established Finance · Managing Director of Penny, an invoice finance business, from July 2020 to November 2023, and working in mortgages, commercial finance and fintech lending since 2010 (career history; career record).
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