Companies House is now usually taking around 8 working hours to form a company. If you need your company quicker than this and it's before 3pm, there is a  "guaranteed same day" option available.

Company Formations - Forming a limited company for the first time

Unless you form companies regularly, you will be filled with questions.  This page is aimed at giving you some starter information about what is required filing a UK limited company for the first time and explains some of the wording
 

Information Needed


General Company Formation Requirements:

  • You must choose a unique Company name that isnt already on the register. However its not as easy as just checking that the name doesnt exist at Companies House. Companies House ignore certain words like THE, AND, OF, SERVICES, UK, .CO.UK etc, they expand or contract numbers to their wordy or number equivalents (2 and TWO would be treated the same) and a variety of others.  Our system checks your proposed name with Companies House automatically  but you can also use our free name check system on our home page to check a variety of names before hand.
  • A UK based address is required for Companies House to send post to (if you are not a UK Resident you can use a registered office forwarding service). You cannot use a PO Box address for the registered office address, but you can trade from a PO Box address afterwards.
  • You need the name, home address, date of birth, nationality and occupation for each involved person. The address of the person involved is available on public record (details can be requested by any person wanting to know more about the company), however, since October 09 its optional (free of charge - no further cost)  to also provide a service address as well - like a mail forwarding service - so that your home address does not appear on public record and then its only Companies House and selected other departments that have access to your residential address (if you supplied a service address).
  • Companies House need a digital signature based on 3 (three) pieces of personal information. You can choose from the town of birth, the eye colour, the mothers maiden name, national insurance number, passport, fathers first name or telephone number  of each person in the company ( 3 letters only so as not to be a security breach for yourself). These 3 facts form a "digital signature" for Companies House to store instead of a paper signature.

Resubmissions back to Companies House  (if required) are FREE OF CHARGE
 

Forming a limited company:

With all correct information, it takes about 10 minutes to enter the details via our automated online company formations system, another minute or so to make payment. As a first time user of our company formation services, we have to carry out some Anti Money Laundering checks and then we send your company request through to Companies House. A few (usually around 4) working hours later, you could have your limited company registered. If you have a need for a faster formation we have our same day service available as an optional upgrade on all our packages.

How many people do I need and what do they need to do?

Since April 2008, its been possible to form a company with just one person. Prior to this date you needed at least 2 people, but now it really is possible to be a "one man band" and also be a Limited Company, There are 3 job types as far as Companies House are concerned. 

Directors are the people who run the business, usually on a day to day basis. They make decisions on behalf of the business, sign contracts on behalf of the company and generally "run" the company. A director doesn't have to be involved in owning any of the business, they can purely just be involved in running it, however usually with small companies, a director will also either partly or wholly own the company.


S

hareholders own the company. The benefit of a limited liability company (and in fact where the name comes from) is that the people who own the company have a limit to which their financial liability is set (should the company fail), based on the issued shares that they own (i.e they have a limited liability financially).  For example 100 shares @ £1 each, mean that the shareholder has a liability to pay the company £100 at some point in time, but not necessarily immediately. If the company incurs debts and closes, then unless trading illegally or giving personal guarantees, shareholders are limited in liability to the value of their shares. If they have already paid, they have no more financial liability to the company. many small companies issue a single share of £1 value and so the liability of the sole shareholder is just £1.  You only need to issue one share to one person in the company and that person owns the whole company with that single share. If you want to put money into the company to start with to get the business moving you can either allocate it as shares (and banks may act more favourably because you are showing a financial commitment to your limited company) or as a loan to the company to be repaid when the company can afford it.

C

ompany Secretary is not the person who makes the tea and does the typing. The company secretary is responsible for the administrative requirements of the company with Companies House. If a new director is appointed, for example, there is a legal requirement to notify Companies House within 14 days of the date of appointment. and it is the Company Secretary who is responsible for ensuring that this takes place. Since April 2008, the  "Companies Act 2006" has removed the legal need for a company secretary to be named. The duties still need to be carried out but this can either be by the same person named as a the Director and Shareholder, or you can elect not to have a company secretary named at all.

To summarise, a single person could carry out the positions of Director and Shareholder (without nominating a secretary), or each job can be given to different people. You may have 4 directors and 2 shareholders for example and all 6 could be different people should you so desire  

Registering a Limited by Shares company is for general commercial businesses - ones aiming to make a profit (hopefully) and earn their shareholders money (i.e. not for a club or association or a charity).  

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