The twelve families of public register – what applies and what does
REGISTRUM's reference layer sorts public registers into twelve families, each fixing a different fact about an entity, a person, an asset or a proceeding. Ordering one certified extract answers one of those twelve questions. The other eleven remain open, and in most jurisdictions they sit with separate authorities, not one combined register.
The twelve families, and what each one fixes
Existence. Control. Title. Insolvency. Security. Litigation. Public notice. Fiscal status. Intellectual property. Licence to practise. Civil status. Registered movables. Twelve families, one fixed fact each, and a single order answers only the one it was built for.
A company register fixes legal existence: registered office, directors, share capital, filing history. A beneficial ownership register fixes control behind the legal person, held separately from the file that names the company itself. A land register fixes title to an asset, not the standing of the party who holds it. An insolvency register fixes a proceeding's status – opened, closed, or never recorded against the named party. A charges register fixes security taken over an asset, ranked by date of registration. A court and judicial register fixes a case reference and its outcome, where publication is permitted at all.
An official gazette fixes the date a fact became public, which is not always the date the fact occurred. A tax register fixes a fiscal identifier, held by a revenue authority rather than a companies registry. An intellectual property register fixes ownership of a mark, a patent or a design, and its renewal date. A professional register fixes a licence to practise a named activity. A civil status register fixes a birth, marriage or death, sitting outside the commercial framework entirely. A register of vehicles, vessels or aircraft fixes title to a moving asset, tracked by a serial number rather than a name.
A foreign applicant without a national identifier – a tax number, a resident's registration code – meets the access barrier here first: several of these families will not accept a search by name alone, and the record that resolves the barrier often sits in a family the applicant did not think to ask for.
A corporate secretary ordering company records from a companies registry sometimes assumes the same file will show a charge over the company's assets, a pending insolvency, or the beneficial owner behind a nominee shareholder. In most jurisdictions it will not: the registry holding the company file and the registry holding the charge, the proceeding or the ownership register are usually different bodies, on different update cycles.
For a firm assembling a diligence file, the twelve-family split is not a curiosity. It determines which register to order from before the question of fee or turnaround arises at all. Ordering from the wrong family, or from one family where two apply, produces a file that reads as complete and is not.
The families do not map onto the same authority twice. A company register in one jurisdiction may be combined with the beneficial ownership register under one registrar; in another, the two are held separately and neither cross-references the other. This index treats the twelve as distinct because the fact each one fixes is distinct, whatever the local administrative arrangement.
None of the twelve is a superset of another. A clean company extract does not extend to land, and a clean land extract does not extend to insolvency. Each stands only for the fact it was issued to state.
Why one register answers less than it appears to
A certified extract from a company register states what that register holds on the date of issue: name, status, registered office, directors as filed. It does not state whether a charge has been registered against the company's assets in a separate charges register, whether a winding-up petition sits in a court register, or whether the beneficial owner named to the companies registry matches the person who actually controls the entity. The extract is accurate. The impression that it is complete is not.
The gap matters most where the families are consulted in sequence rather than together. A diligence file built from a company extract and a land extract, read as if the two together closed the matter, will still miss an insolvency proceeding recorded in a third register and a tax lien recorded in a fourth. Each record is correct on its own terms; none of them extends its coverage to the family beside it.
Where the families are split between authorities within one jurisdiction, the split is rarely announced on either record. A company extract does not state that security interests are held elsewhere. A land extract does not state that the registered owner is subject to an open insolvency. The absence of a cross-reference is not evidence that the underlying fact is absent.
The same pattern holds outside company work. A patent renewal checked against the intellectual property register says nothing about whether the company recorded against it still exists, or is still solvent, or is still the same legal person that filed the original application. A licence checked against a professional register says nothing about a disciplinary entry recorded, where one exists, in a separate regulatory file. The families are built to be read individually and combined by the person ordering, not combined for them.
A civil status entry sits furthest from the commercial framework, yet it is frequently the record that resolves a signing authority, an inheritance question behind a shareholding, or a name change that a company register shows only as a filed amendment, without stating its cause.
Ordering the company file alone, in each of these cases, leaves the second question exactly where it started: unresolved, and undated.
This is the reason the twelve-family index exists as a separate layer above the jurisdiction pages: to make the second question visible before an order is placed for only the first.
Where the families fragment between authorities, and what this index does not show
This page describes the twelve-family framework in general terms. It does not state, for any single jurisdiction, which authority holds which family, what a foreign applicant can search without a resident identifier, or which families are closed to public access altogether. That detail sits on the jurisdiction and document pages beneath this index, each checked against its own primary source.
Fragmentation between authorities is the rule rather than the exception. A company register and a beneficial ownership register can sit inside one registry or in two separate bodies, depending on the jurisdiction. A land register can sit with a ministry, a court or an independent cadastral authority. A tax register is held by a revenue authority in almost every case, never by a companies registry, and a foreign applicant's access to it is usually the most restricted of the twelve.
Where a family does not exist as a public register in a given jurisdiction – most often beneficial ownership, and in some jurisdictions civil status for a non-national – the absence is a property of that jurisdiction's registration framework, not a gap in this index.
The access barrier named earlier recurs at the level of each family: a search that requires a national identifier or an electronic signature the applicant does not hold returns nothing, even where the underlying record is public in principle. A licensed registered agent in the jurisdiction is positioned to cross that barrier; this index does not cross it on its own.
None of this is stated to discourage a direct enquiry. A reader who already holds the identifier a register requires does not need a route through anyone.
Which documents these families produce
Each family produces its own document types, and the names vary between jurisdictions even where the underlying fact is the same. A company register typically produces a certificate of good standing and a certified extract of current filed particulars. A beneficial ownership register, where public, produces an extract naming the controlling party and the mechanism of control. A land register produces a title extract or a charges certificate. An insolvency register produces a certificate of proceedings, stating whether one is open, closed, or has never been recorded against the named party.
A court register produces a certificate of pending or concluded proceedings, where the jurisdiction permits third-party access to that fact at all. A gazette produces a certified copy of the notice as published. An intellectual property register produces a certificate of registration and renewal status. A civil status register produces a certified copy of the entry itself, rather than an extract of it.
The document names above are generic. The exact certificate, its issuing authority and its fee are stated on the jurisdiction and document pages, not on this index.
Route, in general terms
The issuing authority, the fee, the turnaround and the availability of a document to a foreign applicant differ by family and by jurisdiction. None of the twelve families shares one authority or one fee schedule across the jurisdictions REGISTRUM covers. Where a specific document is ordered, the authority, the fee and the timeline are confirmed against the primary source before payment is requested, and stated on that document's own page rather than on this index.
What does REGISTRUM cover?
REGISTRUM obtains registry documents from public registers and licensed registered agents across the jurisdictions it covers, grouped into the twelve families set out above: company, beneficial ownership, land, insolvency, charges, court, gazette, tax, intellectual property, professional, civil status and registered movables. Coverage varies by jurisdiction, and each family's availability is stated on its own jurisdiction page rather than assumed here.
How current is this information?
This index describes the framework REGISTRUM uses to organise register documents; it does not itself carry dated facts. Each jurisdiction and document page beneath it states the date its authority, fee and access details were last checked against the primary source, next to the figure that date supports.
Can a document be obtained from any jurisdiction?
No. Some families do not exist as public registers in some jurisdictions, and some that exist are closed to a foreign applicant or to anyone outside a defined class of requester. Where this applies, the relevant page states the closure rather than the document, and no order is taken for a record that cannot be obtained.
What is the difference between a company register and a beneficial ownership register?
A company register fixes the legal entity itself: its name, status, registered office and filed directors. A beneficial ownership register, where public, fixes the natural person or persons who control that entity – a separate fact, held in most jurisdictions under separate access rules from the company file.
Why does a clean company extract not show a pending insolvency?
Because the two facts are usually kept in different registers, held by different authorities on different update cycles. A company extract states what the companies registry holds on the date of issue. An insolvency proceeding recorded elsewhere is not cross-referenced onto that extract unless the jurisdiction's registers are integrated, and most are not.
Do all jurisdictions organise their registers into the same twelve families?
The twelve-family structure is REGISTRUM's own framework for comparing registers across jurisdictions with different national terminology. A given jurisdiction may combine two families under one authority, split one family across two, or lack a public register for a family entirely; the jurisdiction page states which applies.
Tell us the jurisdiction and the record you are after; we return the route, the issuing authority and the limit. Start with a beneficial ownership extract for the United Kingdom.
REGISTRUM obtains and delivers official records issued by public registers and licensed registered agents. This page describes what those records contain and how they are obtained. It is not advice on the legal effect of any record. To order, write to info@registrumfirm.com.