Dormant Company
Lynette Green

This Week – A Registered Office Address For A Dormant Company

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Usually the clients that I blog about are active companies, but this week I thought I would write about one of the dormant company clients that we have.

What is a dormant company?

A dormant company is a limited company that is registered with Companies House, but is not actively trading or receiving any income.

A company may become dormant for a number of reasons, it could be that the director wanted to reserve the name with Companies House before beginning to trade, it could be that a company which has been trading becomes dormant due to restructuring, ill health, a sabbatical or any other reason why they may not be trading.

A company can be dormant for any amount of time, however, during this time the directors will still need to file dormant company accounts and company directors are legally required to inform HMRC and Companies House in writing as soon as the company becomes dormant.

If a company is dormant they will not need a trading address, but they will still need a registered office address.  This is the address that you provide to HMRC and Companies House for all your statutory legal notices to be sent to.

If your company is not trading many directors will not wish to link it to home address or a trading address of another business for reasons of privacy.

It is possible however to use a registered office address service from a virtual office provider to help keep home and work separate and to maintain privacy for the business owner.

The client that I am talking about here is a multiple business owner, he has several active businesses but has one which has been active but is no longer trading and he is now keeping dormant for a while.  Why not just close down the company and start up again when he is ready?  Well, for one thing it reduces the costs of administration – to close a company down and then open another at a later date does have costs attached.  Making the company dormant is both a more straightforward administrative process and also reduces costs.  It will then be simple for him to start up again when the time is right with a company that already has a trading history.  Read here about restarting a dormant company.

A registered office address service is quite simple.  The address of the virtual office is provided as the registered office address to both Companies House and HMRC.  All the correspondence will be sent to the registered office address provider who will then forward the mail on to the company director at their home address.

Making a company dormant many not exactly be the entrepreneurs dream, but it is a useful and practical solution which is frequently used by business owners as a stop gap to moving forward.

If you know any business owners who may be looking to take a break for a while please do share this with them.

Networking Tips
Lynette Green

Networking Tips

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It’s been an exciting week for me.  My book, 101 Networking Tips was finally completed and went on to Amazon last week.

Writing a book is something I have always wanted to do but I never really knew what I wanted to write about. I had always imagined that I would write fiction but after several years of waiting for a fantastically witty and inventive story to come to me I decided to take the non-fiction route instead.

Networking is something I have been a passionate advocate of  myself for years and since we started running the Office Drinks networking events 5 years ago, it’s something that I have been asked about a lot.

Clearly on the part of the first time networker there are a lot of nerves to overcome.  Many people are apprehensive about networking because they see it as selling, rather than relationship building.  I wanted to write something which would first of all make first time networkers feel less intimidated about attending these events, partly by making it clear that it’s not about selling and partly by providing a step by step guide to researching, attending and following up after events.

Networking is important for small business owners.  Not only is it about promoting products and services, but it’s also about finding suppliers you can trust, bouncing ideas of people, being supported and generally keeping abreast of what’s going on in the business community.

Many small businesses will start up with just one person, or just one director anyway and trying to do it all by yourself can be lonely and you can wonder if you’re heading in the right direction.  Networking helps.  It makes you get out there and meet people.  It keeps you focussed on what you are doing and it does bring in business.

Whether or not you have read the book I urge you to give networking a go. (If you’d like to take a look inside the book click here). There is everything to gain and nothing to lose.

I’d be interested to hear what your experiences of networking have been.  Have you got some advice you’d like to pass on to our readers?  What do you think has been the greatest benefit of networking?  Please leave a comment below.