Is there a minimum age under which an individual is barred from acting as a company director?

A director can not be appointed unless they are at least 16 years old.

Are company directors permitted to give a corporate address or PO Box number as an address?

A company officer is required to give both their usual residential address (URA) which will not be displayed on the public record and their service address which will be. The service address may be a corporate address.  In either case the addresses given must be a physical location, a PO Box number is unacceptable unless it forms part of a full address.

Can a PO Box be used for the Registered Office address?

Yes, provided the full address is given, including the postcode, and it is validated by the Royal Mail.

Is there a requirement that subscribers or officers of British limited companies be resident in the UK?

No. Subscribers or officers may be resident outside the UK.

What are the objects of a company?

The objects are what the company does.  New companies are considered to have unrestricted objects unless they specifically insert a clause in their articles detailing them.

Where can I find a set of Memorandum & Articles of Association?

Your copy of Memorandum and Articles will be provided by us without extra charge. These will be our standard documents with objects as discribed above. However, if you require specific objects to be inserted in your Memorandum and Articles we can arrange this to be done for additional charge of 50 GBP. Please, contact us with regards to this matter.

Are certificates given by the Registrar of Companies accepted for the purpose of issuing legalisation certificates?

Certificates issued by Companies House are stamped or electronically signed but they will not be accepted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the purpose of issuing legalisation certificates.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office require that documents must have the original signature or seal of a British public official (solicitor).

We can arrange those documents to be certified and/or appostiled for you. Please, specify in the order form if you require this service.

Sensitive words.

These are words and expressions which, when included in a company name, may imply business pre-eminence, a particular status or a specific function. For this reason, you must seek approval of the Secretary of State before the proposed company can be incorporated (or requesting a change to a company’s name). The aim is to ensure that the inclusion of the word is justified so that its use in the name does not mislead the public. Companies House administers the approval process on behalf of the Secretary of State.

Is there a list of sensitive words?

The words set out in Appendix A are prescribed under the ‘Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business Names (Sensitive Words and Expressions) Regulations 2009 (SI No. 2615)’. To use these words you must obtain the support of the body shown in Table A and send it with the ‘Application to register a company’ (Form IN01) which will allow the Secretary of State to consider whether or not to approve the name.

The words set out in Appendix B are also prescribed under the above regulations. If you choose a name that includes any of these words you will need to write to the 'relevant body' to ask whether they have any objection to the proposed name and deliver a copy of the response with your application.