After deciding to become a limited company contractor, there will be a number of steps to follow in order to complete your start up.
Firstly, you will need to come up with a name for your business – one that sounds professional, isn’t already taken by another company and doesn’t contain any offensive words or expressions.
When you have a name and have directors, shareholders etc. put in place, you will need to register your business with Companies House.
This comes with a small fee and may take up to 48 hours to set up. You will also need to have the following information at hand to complete registering your company:
- The company’s name and address
- The names and addresses of directors, company secretary and shareholders.
When you register, you will need to arrange the following:
- A ‘memorandum of association’, which is a legal statement signed by all initial shareholders agreeing to form the company.
- An ‘articles of association’, which is a set of written rules about running the company agreed by the shareholders, directors and the company secretary.
At the point of completing registering the company, you may assume that you now own all legal rights to the name, logo and any slogans – however, this is not the case at all, so in order to have these rights, you will need a registered trademark.