news

1st February 2007

VAT Registration can be done as part of your company formation. Registration for VAT needs to be done if your turnover is above the threshold for yearly turnover (£68,000 per year). Registration with turnover less than this is optional but many people opt for registration because it makes them look like they are bigger than they are.

Registration takes around 3 weeks and requires you to have your bank account set up beforehand

other info

We form hundreds of companies every month.

requirements to form a company

 



Congratulations on starting your own business
. The Company Merchant Limited were one of the first companies to be involved in the automated electronic interface into the Companies House system in 2001 and even today, many other companies still take basic details over the internet and carry the process out manually behind the scenes. Our formation process is fully automated. We have had formation requests incorporated into companies within 45 minutes, although realistically around 4 to 5 working hours is usual

   
Why pay a company to do a name check for you and wait 24 hours for the information when Companies House provide free access to the register and our systems check your company name with Companies House while you are forming your company! Simply visit Companies House between 7am and midnight Monday to Saturday to search for existing names or go straight to our website to form your company and our own name checker will confirm if your requested name is available.

Our "no resubmission fee" policy means that if you submit a formation request and it fails for any reason then any amount of resubmissions are FREE OF CHARGE until your company is formed.

what information do i need ?

A Registered Office. Whilst it sounds technical, its simply the address that Companies House have on file for sending paperwork to. It doesnt have to be where you trade from and it can usually be your home address but if you rent you should check with your landlord.

People. The people that will be involved in your company. You will need to know:

  • HOME address. Not a PO Box or a business address
  • Full name, including any middle names, and if you have ever changed name (except for getting married)
  • Date of Birth
  • Occupation (what do you do - shop assistant, architect, director etc)
  • Eye colour
  • Town of birth
  • Mothers maiden name

The last 3 items are security questions which effectively replace the fact that you are not signing anything.

You no longer need to have a seperate person as a "Company Secretary" (this changed in April 2008). You just need one physical person as a "Director" and the same person can be the shareholder (owner of the company). The secretary can also be a director, or you can choose not to have a secretary. When you start up a new commercial company, the company you create is like another person. It can own property, it can buy and sell goods etc. The people who own the company are called shareholders because they hold a share in the company. The people who run the day to day business of the company are called directors, and the person responsible for ensuring all the legal filing is done every year (amongst other things) is called the Company Secretary. To form a UK limited liability company you need to have at least 1 physical person involved in the company (you cannot just use another "company" as the director and shareholder).

 

what do i do now ?

Our company formations control centre will give you more detail about our packages and lists of frequently asked questions and lots of optional extras like free business banking with HSBC, brass name plates for your office etc. Everything can be done online

Start Now

but if you would prefer to speak with someone, you can call us on

0845 370 9610

and we will be more than happy to hand hold you through the process over the phone.