Changing Ltd Company name

cazziebo

This might be a daft question, and I'm sure someone will tell me if it is!

Just over a year ago, I became self employed and envisaged doing regular work for only two companies. I sought out advice from an accountant who advised me to set up as a Ltd com. As I knew both "clients" very well and I was doing this in a hurry, I didn't give any thought to company name so just went for "My name Ltd".

I'm now in the very fortunate position where I have way more work than I can handle, and I'm finding I'm turning a fair bit away, or committing myself to projects 4,5,6, months in advance. I'm also dealing with 7 or 8 companies now.

I'd like to change the company name to something which is more descriptive of what I do for two main reasons:

1. I could then use associates, or even employ someone either on a PT or Temp basis
2. It would help me start to market my services to ensure I can sustain the current levels of business.

Is it as simple as just saying "Trading as X X" ?

Any help gratefully received.

Premier_2

cazziebo wrote: »

This might be a daft question, and I'm sure someone will tell me if it is!

Just over a year ago, I became self employed and envisaged doing regular work for only two companies. I sought out advice from an accountant who advised me to set up as a Ltd com. As I knew both "clients" very well and I was doing this in a hurry, I didn't give any thought to company name so just went for "My name Ltd".

I'm now in the very fortunate position where I have way more work than I can handle, and I'm finding I'm turning a fair bit away, or committing myself to projects 4,5,6, months in advance. I'm also dealing with 7 or 8 companies now.

I'd like to change the company name to something which is more descriptive of what I do for two main reasons:

1. I could then use associates, or even employ someone either on a PT or Temp basis
2. It would help me start to market my services to ensure I can sustain the current levels of business.

Is it as simple as just saying "Trading as X X" ?

Any help gratefully received.

You can, as you suggest, trade under any name you wish but you will often have to mention the owners identity, in this case the existing limited company name, to comply with the Business Names Act 1985.

This may cause issues with people searching for you. e.g if you are XYZ Ltd trading as ABC, what do they search for you under? ABC or XYZ?

Similarly you will have to inform your bank as chances are you will receive cheques made out to either name

OR

You could just formally change the name of the company.
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/infoAndGuide/faq/changeCompNameRes.shtml

InsideInsurance

You could use a trading name if you wanted, though that wouldnt actually be changing the name of the limited company. Plus there are plenty of companies that are named after their founders (Eddie Stobart ltd, John Lewis, W H Smiths) that are a little bigger than a one man band

If you actually want to change the name of the company itself rather than just creating a trading name you can read about the process at http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/infoAndGuide/faq/changeCompNameRes.shtml

patman99

As your clients already know your company by it's current name, I would stick with what you have. After all, you now have plenty of esteem to the name with all your new clients.

There is absolutely no need to change names just in order to be able to employ someone, you are a Ltd company, so can employ as many people as you wish without any come-back.
I work for a large multi-national and one of our suppliers uses his name as the company name. He employes 20+ people.

agrinnall

I'm inclined to agree with patman that it's unnecessary, but if you are concerned about the company name maybe you could ask some of your existing customers if they would have any issues with you changing the name.