Register UK Ltd Company - Recommended formation agents?

adamdynamic

Hi,

I'm about to register a (private) limited company in the UK, rather than doing it directly with Companies House I wanted to use a formation company and buy one 'off the shelf', mainly to get a 'central London' address for the new company, plus standard articles of association etc.

I've searched on this forum but I can't find much discussion on the subject - can anyone recommend a company that provides this type of service? There seems to be loads on google but (apart from the price) it's not clear what the differences are in some cases? I'd rather spend an extra £20 and not get a tsunami of junk mail in a weeks time when they sell my contact details

Any info would be appreciated,

Thanks in advance!

Adam

Annisele

I used UK Plc for company formation as well as their registered office service.

I never had a problem with spam from them, but they were sometimes a bit slow (two to three weeks) at forwarding correspondence. HMRC and Companies House were the only people who sent stuff to my company's registered address (I gave my home address to everybody else) so that was fine for me - but might be an issue for you.

Bear in mind that many registered office services assume that you're only going to get HMRC/Companies House post sent to the registered address, so you'll probably have to pay a bit more if you want your customers' mail to go to your London address.

You might get a bit of junk mail anyway, as directors' names and addresses are publicly available information from Companies House.

Why do you need the central London address? If it's just for prestige, depending on who your customers are it might not help you much (a quick google of many central London addresses makes very clear that they're just postboxes for tiny companies).

adamdynamic

Annisele wrote: »

Why do you need the central London address? If it's just for prestige, depending on who your customers are it might not help you much (a quick google of many central London addresses makes very clear that they're just postboxes for tiny companies).

Thanks for the response The central London address is partly about 'prestige', it's mainly because as an online business I don't have presmises and as I live in rented accommodation, I'd rather have a registered address than have to update my company details every time I moved (though I accept that as a Director I will need to update these details with Companies House).

Aquamania

Anyone see 'Dave: Loan Ranger' on C4 last night?
(Dave Fishwick from the former Bank of Dave programme where he set up Burnley Savings and Loans Ltd)

It appears these mail forwarding addresses are very popular with the Payday Loans companies who obviously don't want customers complaining, or even paying, face to face.
They too only wish to do business from behind the safety of a remote computer screen or telephone.

One PayDay lender even threatened to send third party debt collectors to a customer who was falling behind "to deal with the debt as they see fit". Dave went looking for them himself to pay off the debt in full, in cash, but was unable to find anyone at the address to pay.


Anyway, perhaps best not to combine the two.
Search the net for a company formation agent - you should get a price of £20 or less

Then search for mail forwarding services, PO boxes, virtual mailboxes, etc.
Don't know how much they will charge because as a moneysaver, I would never pay for another address when I already have one.
It costs nowt to change your registered address at companies house as and when required