How Shelf Companies Lost Their Appeal and What to Do Now
Also known as a ready-made company or an off-the-shelf company, a shelf company is a pre-registered business you can buy and customise.
Your Company Formations is a leading company that offers sound advice and assistance to sole traders and people who are just starting out in business who want to formally set up their own registered limited company to trade under.
As part of our comprehensive business services, we also offer the opportunity for you to register your new company with an official registered office address and trading address. These are the two main addresses that you will need for your company by law, and these are the ones that you will be using the most during your day to day business operations.
But what is the difference between a Registered Office Address and a Business Trading Address?
Registered Office Address
Protect your home address
Your company registered office address is the one that you use to register your business with Companies House. This is the address that Companies House keeps on file for you and is used for all forms of business correspondence between Companies House, HMRC and yourself.
Your registered office address is also the address that appears on public record and is displayed in the list of registered companies that can be accessed and viewed by the general public via the Companies House website. So if someone wanted to look up your business and find an address for your company, this is the address that their search will reveal.
Your registered office address does not have to be the same as your trading address. You should ensure that you choose the best address for your registered office address because this is where all of your most important paperwork will be sent. You cannot afford to risk missing any important documentation or notifications from Companies House or HMRC, so make sure you choose an address where any paperwork will be immediately received, opened and actioned.
Registered Trading Address
Trading address without an office
Your company trading address is the location from where you conduct your business. For a solo entrepreneur or sole trader working for themselves from home, they can register their home address as their trading address.
For a small company or partnership that may rent a business premises to conduct their work, such as a workshop, warehouse or a suite of offices, then this would be their trading address. Your trading address is used for all of your day to day business correspondence, such as for your paperwork from your suppliers, customers, deliveries, banking and finance, equipment leasing etc.
Does my company need two separate addresses?
Most registered companies use two addresses. This can help to separate out the most important correspondence from Companies House and HMRC from all of your other business-related post. Most companies will get inundated with junk mail, sales letters, flyers, brochures, leaflets etc. as well as their regular business correspondence from customers and suppliers. It can be really easy to overlook or lose any important letters or requirements coming from official sources when they are all jumbled together.
Many business operations are so busy that they don’t sort through their post every day. Some businesses don’t even have an office or an admin assistant working on their premises full time who is there to take care of all the post. This is why it isn’t a good idea to use one single address for all of your company correspondence and paperwork.
You can save yourself a lot of time and hassle by using the appropriate address for organising your paperwork.
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Keeping your home address private
Protect your family life
You may be wondering if it is such a good idea to have your home address as your registered office address? After all, do you really want your private home address to be on public display on the internet for all to see?
There is a very major risk that using your private home address for your company office address will leave you exposed to a lot of inconvenience and unwanted hassle. There are people that scan the internet for addresses so that they can target them with their marketing materials. This means that you could see a ton of unwanted junk mail pouring through your letter box that you will need to sort through and recycle.
It is not just an ever-increasing amount of junk mail that you will have to cope with either. Many cold-callers and opportunistic sales people will also target your home and add your address to their list to call. This can often mean strangers turning up on your doorstep at all hours of the day and evening trying to sell you something.
Do you or your family members really want all this hassle?
You may think that by simply using a P.O. Box address will solve all of these problems. However, when you register your company with Companies House, you cannot use a P.O. Box as your registered office address. This must be a real, physical address that actually exists.
Luckily, there is a perfect solution to save you from having to go through all this unwanted hassle. You can save yourself a lot of grief by using our Registered Office Address services for your business.
Registered Office Address Services
When you go through your company formations process and register your limited company, you will need to give Companies House your Registered Office Address details. Instead of using your own private home address for this requirement, you can use our service. As a Registered Office Address and a Business Trading Address provider, Your Company Formations can give you a very prestigious Central London address for you to use for all of your company address needs.
You will benefit from having a Central-London business address that looks impressive and creates a very professional image for your company. Your Registered Office Address will be:
(Your Company Name)
Kemp House 160 City Road,
London, EC1V 2NX
Remember – your registered office address should only be used for correspondence between yourself and Companies House and HMRC. You do not want to use this address for all of your other business trading paperwork.
By using our Registered Office Address service, your most important reminders and documentation coming from HMRC and Companies House will be guaranteed to be received. We will then be able to forward your post to your home address without ever making your home address known to the public. This is a very reassuring service to have, especially to help protect your loved ones and keep your family life and work life completely separate.
Business Trading Address Services
London business address
Your Company Formations offer Business Trading Address services to your company to help you gain a prestigious Central-London address that sits in the heart of the bustling business district. The extra benefit to you is that you get this prestigious address without having to pay all the expensive overheads that come with it!
Our service is an ideal solution should your operate a business where you don’t have any full-time staff to take care of your incoming business post. A lot of small businesses don’t run a fully-manned office on their premises, or even have the available budget to employ an office or admin assistant.
This is where our low-cost business trading address services come in handy. You can use our prestigious London City address for all of your business paperwork and correspondence to impress your clients, and our professional team at Kemp House will collect and organise all of your incoming business post.
With your business trading address service, we operate a mail forwarding service where we can forward all of your important business mail to an address of your choosing. This could be your home address if that is were you are based. We can also scan and email you copies of your letters if you prefer. This can help to speed up anything urgent that needs your attention, or if you have a deadline that needs meeting.
If you want to find out more about our comprehensive business address services, do not hesitate to contact our friendly team. We are here to answer your questions and find the perfect business address solutions for your company.
Further reading:
Guide to Starting an Online Business
