PAYE103025 - Individual records: maintain individual details: address

Address details (residential or correspondence) can be inserted using the Insert Address Details screen, or amended by selecting the Edit Record icon next to the address details you want to amend.

To ensure the correct residency status is set for all taxpayers you should always use the search facility and not change the entry found. Only enter an address in full if you can’t find the correct one using the search facility. This is usually for new builds.

Both screens are accessed from the Address Summary screen.

Note: You should only use the Edit Record icon when you want to:

  • Amend part of an address already recorded on the computer system and the address details are incomplete or partially incorrect
    Or
  • Delete an address where you inadvertently enter an address belonging to another individual when processing an item of post.

The Address Summary screen will show the data currently recorded (the default for the Country field will be Great Britain if the address is not abroad). Where the address is not abroad you should always use the regional country codes as shown in the country field drop down selection list, as follows:

  • Alderney
  • Channel Islands
  • England
  • Guernsey
  • Isle of Man
  • Jersey
  • Northern Ireland
  • Sark
  • Scotland
  • Wales - Where you set the country code to Wales, prior to issuing any output from SEES you should check to see if the Welsh language indicator is set and where it is, submit the output to the Welsh Language Unit.

Note: Where you select Alderney, Channel Islands, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man or Sark in the Country field, do not enter a postcode in the postcode field as these countries are treated in the same way as foreign countries. For this reason, the postcode should appear on the last line in the main body of the address.

Note: When an address is changed from England or Northern Ireland to a Scottish or Welsh address or vice-versa, a calculation will be made to ensure the taxpayer status is still correct. The status of the taxpayer may change.     

When amending / inserting an address you must have an entry in at least the first two lines of the address field. Therefore, if you identify a record where only the first line of the address field is complete and a full stop is shown in the second line, you should not attempt to remove the full stop and amend the address unless you have a correct second line of the address to enter.

If the latest address held on NPS is incomplete, for example, where both the first and second lines of the address only show 1 character, you should re-enter the details of the previous address held on NPS only if you are aware that the address is still current.

Where a TRN record has an address start date of 29/06/09; this is a standard date used following migration of data from COP where no address start date was held on COP.

If you are issuing a repayment or other output, the address that will print on the payable order or output is the address that exists on the record when the repayment or transaction is made. A change or amendment to the address will need to be made before the repayment or transaction is created to allow the new address to flow and update all related systems.

If you receive notification of a change of address, check the appropriate NPS screens to see if there are any suspended outputs (including repayments) where the previous address had the RLS indicator set and re-issue the correspondence in accordance with PAYE106010.

The remainder of this subject is presented as follows

Types of address
Additional delivery information
Postcode
Address history
Foreign address
British Forces Post Office (BFPO)
In prison
Agent address details
Capacitor address details
Employer notification of employee address changes

Types of address

It is important that you understand what addresses can be held on an individual record and which of these will have post sent to them. There may be two addresses for the individual held on their record:

  • Residential Address. The residential address is the individual’s home address
  • Correspondence Address. The individual may nominate an address for correspondence that is different from his or her residential address. All correspondence will be sent to this address, rather than the residential address, apart from in the circumstances described below. Where the correspondence address is RLS the correspondence will be sent to the individual's residential address.

There will be some instances where the correspondence address is shown as the Welsh Unit or Visually Impaired Media Unit (VIMU) address. This will occur when the request for output to be issued in Welsh or Large Print, Braille or Audio has been processed on the National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS). In these cases, it will not be possible for the individual to have their correspondence sent to a correspondence address and all correspondence will be sent to the residential address. You may however want to set the appropriate indicator on the Indicators screen so that the record is kept up to date.

Note: The address displayed in the Individual Summary screen is the one to which correspondence will be issued and is therefore described on this screen as the ‘Correspondence Address’ irrespective of whether it is a ‘Correspondence’ or ‘Residential’ address.

Additional delivery information

There may be occasions when a residential or correspondence address that has been matched with an address from the address frameworks and stored on the computer system does not complete the full postal address. There may be occasions when a residential or correspondence address, that has been matched with an address from the search engine, do not add any further information or change the format of the address.

If you require additional delivery information enter the full address in the correspondence address fields.

The following are examples of additional delivery information:

  • A room or flat number
  • A wing of a building.

Individual

The residential address for NPS and the base address on TBS should be entered using the search engine.  The address shouldn’t be amended in any way.

As there is no separate field, you must enter additional delivery information in line 1 of the address field with the remainder of the address in lines 2 to 4 and postcode and country fields. If you do this, you will be able to view the additional delivery information on the PAYE Service and correspondence will be delivered correctly. Take care you do not exceed the maximum number of characters when completing lines 1 to 4 (27 characters including spaces) as this may prevent delivery of the correspondence.

Capacitor

The Capacitor Details screen has a separate field to record additional delivery information (ADI) and 5 address lines of 35 characters (including spaces) and postcode and country field. However, you will not be able to use the ADI field as information contained in this field would be lost when the details were passed on to other systems. This field has therefore been disabled. If the address does contain additional delivery information you must enter this in line 1 of the address as described above in ‘Individuals’.

Non CESA Agent

The Agent Details screen has a separate field to record additional delivery information and 5 address lines of 35 characters (including spaces) and a postcode and country field. When entering agent address details, you can use the ADI field if you need to.

When entering additional delivery information for an agent address you must use the ADI field. This will ensure that the additional delivery information is viewable on the PAYE Service to PAYE users and included on output to assist delivery to the correct destination.

Notes:

1. Where an individual contacts HMRC to notify us that there is a change to their agent details for example a change of address, advise the individual to ask their agent to notify us directly.

2. Where you receive notification of a change of address directly from the agent you should notify the Agent Maintainer Team, who will consider if they need to contact the agent to obtain a full list of all PAYE clients so that all individual(s) records can be updated. Once details are received, the agent maintainer will have the option of dealing with the amendments themselves or passing the list on to a PAYE team / individual with the appropriate PAYE access.

The Agent Maintainer Team is based in CAAT, Longbenton

Central Agent Authorisation Team
Agent Maintainer
Benton Park View
Longbenton
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE98 1ZZ

Postcode

If you do not enter a postcode when adding a new address, the postcode field will never be updated.

A British Forces Post Office (BFPO) number is not recognised as a post code.

Where you select, Alderney, Channel Islands, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man or Sark in the country field, you will not be able to enter a postcode in the Postcode field. For this reason, the postcode should appear on the last line in the main body of the address.

If in the course of your day-to-day work you become aware of the postcode you should follow action guide tax80006 to record the complete address on the PAYE Service.

Address history

Any new address details (residential or correspondence) will result in an historical record being created.

Historical (residential or correspondence) address details, with the current correspondence address at the top of the list, will be displayed in the Address Details screen. Previous addresses will be displayed in descending order of end date.

Note: When information is supplied by CID and the first line of the address is the same as information already held on PAYE Service, any other changes to the address needed will be applied as an update to the customer’s record, you will not see this in Contact History or Address History.

Foreign address

An address is Foreign if it is not:

  • Within the United Kingdom, Isle of Man or Channel Islands
  • One of HM Ships
  • With British Forces Abroad or an address with a British Forces Post Office (BFPO) number.

When you enter a foreign address on the individual’s record in the Address Details screen you must:

  • Use no more than 35 characters (including spaces) on each line
  • Use the first three lines of the address field (if the overseas address is only 2 lines long and you cannot split it over 3 lines, enter a full stop in line 3 to enable the country to be entered in line 4)
  • Enter only the country in line 4 and ensure that the country is an exact match with the country shown in the country field, and if it isn’t, correct it. Failure to do so will result in the country being printed twice on any outputs
  • Enter ‘Mersin 10, Turkey’ in the address fields instead of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus isn’t an internationally recognised country)
  • Where ever Burma appears in an address, you should change this to Myanmar.


When the address is updated to one outside the UK (except BFPO addresses) the ‘Date of leaving the UK’ date needs entering in the relevant field on the ‘Indicator Summary Edit’ screen.

Notes:

1. When PAYE outputs are issued, there is a matching process in place to check if there is an exact match within the address to the country field, if there is, the country will not be duplicated on outputs.

2. Some foreign addresses may contain too many characters to fit the space available in lines 1 to 3 of the address fields. In these circumstances it is important that the essential aspects of the address which might affect delivery are entered in the space available. If you are unsure about what the essential aspects of the address are, you can get further guidance by looking at the Royal Mail internet website and the ‘Overseas clear addressing’ section. This gives examples of how to address overseas mail correctly.

British Forces Post Office (BFPO)

Where you enter a British Forces Post Office (BFPO) address, it is treated as an address within the United Kingdom. Therefore, you must not attempt to enter a specific country, instead select ‘NOT SPECIFIED OR NOT USED’ from the drop-down menu.

The BFPO number should be shown on the last line in the main body of an address and not in the postcode field. Do not enter any other address details after the BFPO number on the address.

In prison

Where you enter or change the address for a customer who is imprisoned in the UK you should enter the prisoner number on line one followed by the full address of the prison from line two onwards.

Agent address details

When using address search for an agent, the address found will in some cases include the name of the agent in the first line of the address. When the address details are selected, the agent's name is shown in both the ‘Agent Name’ field and ‘Address Details’ field at line 1, this also transfers over to the Agent Summary screen.

If this problem occurs when you enter an agent's address details on an individual's record you should either:

  • Select the address, then
  • Edit the address by deleting the agent name from line 1 of the address field and move all other entries up one line, then
  • Save the address to the record
    Or
  • Use the address details on the 64-8 to manually input the address details.

Capacitor address details

When using address search for a capacitor, the address found will in some cases include the name of the capacitor in the first line of the address. When the address details are selected, the capacitor’s name is shown in both the ‘Capacitor Name’ field and ‘Address Details’ field at line 1, this also transfers over to the Capacitor Summary screen.

If this problem occurs when you enter a capacitor’s address details on an individual’s record you should either:

  • Select the address, then
  • Edit the address by deleting the capacitor’s name from line 1 of the address field and move all other entries up one line, then
  • Save the address to the record
    Or
  • Manually input the address details from the correspondence.

Employer notification of employee address changes

With effect from April 2015 HMRC will automatically process any changes to existing employee’s addresses when an address update has been included on a Full Payment Submission (FPS).

It is not a mandatory requirement for employers to provide a change of address and we would prefer the employer to encourage their employee to inform HMRC by updating their online personal Tax Account. Employers are only legally required to submit the address of new employees to HMRC.

In some cases, the employee may not be able to update their online Personal Tax Account.  The employer can pass the information onto HMRC by completing the employee address boxes on their next FPS, if their software allows them to do so.

When an FPS is submitted for an existing employee a change of address will be identified via RTI data processing and that address will be subjected to robust business validation rules before it is accepted. There has to be a previous address on the FPS prior to the FPS with the new address before the 3 consecutive FPS submission will be applied. If this is not supplied the new address will not be updated.

Once it is accepted it is passed on to other systems via CDF, including NPS and TBS.

Where the change of address fails the validation, the FPS itself will still be accepted but no updates will be made to the employee's existing address.

The business validation rules will protect the customer record from over writing good data with inaccurate / old data.
A change of address will not be considered where any of the following has been indicated on the FPS for that employee:

  • Payment After Leaving
  • One Off Payment
  • Payment to Non-Individual.

A change of address provided on an Earlier Year Update (EYU) or on a further year to date FPS will not be updated on our records.

(This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)