Who owns a company?

VeryBigDavid

I want to take the company who sold me a car to the small claims court.

I know the company name and address. I know their bank details. ( it IS in the company name) I do not know who owns the company.

I do not know their legal entity . They are not registered as a limited company , so I presume they are a sole trader or possibly a partnership.

To fill out the forms for the court I have to give the name of the person. How can I proceed.

Instead of giving a person’s name on the forms can I give the company name?

Thank you

Silver_Shark

You'll need their full legal name.

user1977

If they're a sole trader or a partnership then that's what they are - they're not a company. They might have a "trading name" but that isn't something you can sue, you'll need the name of the individual if they're a sole trader (and ideally a home address).

MattMattMattUK

If the bank account name is a business name then they must be a limited company or partnership, otherwise the account must be in the name of a natural human.

user1977

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81966641#Comment_81966641

I suspect you've replied on the wrong thread!

Arunmor

I reckon they will be a company, much easier for them to fold it and phoenix a new company from the ashes. You need to start digging in companies house with any names or details you may have, you might need to be creative in your search terms.

sheramber

If you tell us who the dealer is someone may be able to find something to help you.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6664561/who-owns-a-company

A company is owned by its shareholders, if any shareholder has more than 25% of the shares or 25% of the votes or some other significant influence over the company they will be listed on Companies House. Shareholders can be legal or natural persons so in some cases you need to follow down a string of companies owning each other to find who is the ultimate human owner. Obviously large corporates often won't have a single shareholder with 25% ownership

Sole traders and partnerships are structures for businesses but are not companies. Unlimited/traditional partnerships arent registered at companies house and naturally sole traders arent either plus neither are "owned" by anyone given you cannot own a human, slavery was outlawed a long time ago.

The paperwork you have should have identified the legal entity you are dealing with. Any business can have a trading style which can be the logo at the top of the page but in the "small print" it should state the legal entity, like a footer of a website may say something like "Sprintlaw is the trading name of Sprintlaw (UK) Ltd, registered in the United Kingdom under no. 12872061" or you get "Bob Smith t/a Cheapo Cars"

Business bank accounts often allow you to include the trading name of a business so you can accept payments made to both the legal entity name and the trading name

For issuing purposes you need to use the legal entity name else there is a basic defence because often trading names are used by multiple businesses given there is no registry or control over them

VoyagerXC

If you search for a company by name on the Companies House website then within the details for that company you will see a tab "People". Click on this and you will see two tabs, one for "Officers" and one for "Persons with significant control".

In very simple terms:

Officers are those who have legal responsibilities (generally as Directors) for how the business of the company is conducted.

Persons with significant control are, as the term suggests, those who actually control the business, generally as those who hold the shares in the company and thus have the entitlement to draw dividends and benefit from the success of the company.

Any individual who benefits from their ownership of a business or acts as a director of a business will be listed by name, together with their month & year of birth (so that you can distinguish, for example, between granddad, dad and son all named Joe Bloggs all associated with the same family business) and a registered address (useful should you ever have need to send a signed for/recorded delivery letter).

Sometimes one needs to go through several layers of holding companies or group structures to find the people behind an individual business, but you should get there in the end.

This is very much a layman's view, and no doubt a bit of a simplification, but that is the gist of it and so hope it is helpful.