I need to register a new business as a Community Interest Company, and I have no address other than my personal one to which I might register it. My only alternative seems to be to pay £200+ for a PO Box, and register that way.
What do the accountants/lawyers/business owners of STW have to say on the matter? Does it matter if I register the business at my home address? What dangers does that pose? Is spending the almost-£300 on a PO box worth the cost?
Thanks for whatever you can tell me.
Your registered office address is important as anyone who has a need to legally present documents can do so at that address.
You therefore need a registered office that you can be confident you will get the post from.
That's why it's £300 a year and is best done by a proper company secretarial, accounting or law firm.
As for using the home address it really does depend if you want it as a matter of public record as it won't take much effort (nothing in fact) to match your director details, month and year of birth etc up.
Me I wouldn't there's a reason director and shareholder addresses are no longer viewable at companies house.
This may surprise you but Companies House don't perform much by way of checks on those forming companies so someone could swipe enough of your details to make another fake company in your name fairly easily.
People do still do it though.
Just to add that CIC's may have some subtly different rules around what's public etc. But I would say the general principles hold.
Thanks for that, @garage-dweller.
When you say
That’s why it’s £300 a year and is best done by a proper company secretarial, accounting or law firm.
what do you mean exactly? What is best done by a proper company secretarial, accounting or law firm? The registering of the address? Should I be lawyering up in order to register the business?
Please forgive my ignorance. This is obviously a big first for me.
No worries I meant the registered office service.
We do it where I work (big accounting firm) generally as part of a bigger service offering.
In simple terms your registered office is one place that is discoverable where you can always validly legally deliver a document.
That might include legal proceedings, Companies House notices. Stuff that if you miss it your company could be in deep do do.
For that reason if you don't want that address to be your house then you want to know that whoever is getting your post is passing it on and sufficiently quickly. This is best done by someone who actually understands that it's important.
In terms of forming the CIC you might want a lawyer or company formation agent to do that but it does depend on how complicated you plan to make thinsg. One of the reasons for that is you need to make sure it's constitution (the rules the directors and shareholders have to work within) is appropriate and things are dealt with in a way that actually reflects what is going to happen.
A lot depends on your financial constraints/budget and whether an off the shelf option gives you the right basic parameters. If not it's usually quicker to get it right now than fix it later.
I know nothing about CICs but a good start point might be to call Companies House helpline to ask what information is available in the public domain once a CIC is registered.
I doubt if there's any need to pay for advice.
A limited company registration will show registered address (could be a service address), directors names, month/year of birth and any persons with significant control.
How much/little of this applies to a CIC is a question I cannot answer; equally I don't know what additional information would be required in your situation - hence my suggestion to contact Companies House.
Should I be lawyering up in order to register the business?
Please forgive my ignorance. This is obviously a big first for me.
I wouldn’t have any huge worries about registering a legitimate business at my home address, especially for something like a CIC where you aren’t necessarily trying to appear professional. However last time I registered a business Directors Home addresses had to be listed unless you could show there was some risk (like animal rights activists coming to your house). That has been relaxed somewhat now. One might assume though that for someone setting up a CIC that the director is reasonably well known locally so those who want to would be able to find you anyway?
Personally I would say getting the right structure and entity in place first is more important than where it’s registered. It’s a huge ball ache to discover after a year that your LLP would have been better as a LTD (for a CIC that might be CIO) or that you only created the company with 2 shares and need to create new share, or that the quorum for an AGM is more people than you can realistically get together because the thing is a different scale from was imagined, especially if the articles don’t refer to proxy votes or electronic meetings - and how do you change the quorum/articles? (At an AGM/EGM!)
Lawyers are however a PITA because they typically expect to make a living from avoiding you future misery as well as unpicking current misery. Nobody involved with the CIC who is from this sort of background? Or any external support (council/community body who have at least been through it before)?
I would register it at an accountants so their address shows when internet searches are done. It's just too easy to get people's details, name, address, date of birth. I had a directorship dissolved 20 years ago and it still appears on an online search.
A friend is v careful about security, set up a business and put home address. Not only does a search reveal her home address but also the % split of the business between her and husband. I darent tell her.