Other Opinions About the Dormant Company Packages

"Some service providers claim that they sell companies with dormant status. It's even promoted on the websites as a unique formation package for companies that will remain dormant for some prolonged period of time. Misguided by the advertising, you will even be persuaded to pay a little extra for their services and for filings your statutory documents every year."

People who'd read such statement would say "wow, Coddan is trying to sell me something which another, quite reputable, agent has described as, let's be frank, and misleading information". Well, let us clarify a few points. First of all, Companies House doesn't incorporate a dormant or active company, they register a company, and they don't care if a company is a dormant or an active one. Once the company is registered, the HMRC (tax office) issues the UTR (unique tax reference) number to each newly incorporated company and they ask you to notify them when your company starts trading activity, within 3 months from the beginning of your operations.

At the same time, you can submit a special form to the tax office with the statement that your company is dormant. If the form is properly completed and delivered to the HMRC, your company will not be charged a penalty if you will miss the deadline to submit your corporation tax forms, meaning you can save at least £100 as the penalty payment.

With our dormant company packages you will get a registered office address (why do you need to register at your home address if you just need to keep a company status as dormant?), appointment of a company secretary that will deal with your company's initial dormant status creation with HMRC (why you need to trouble yourself trying to remember all the important dates for filing your annual compliance forms, if your secretary can do it for you?). At the anniversary of your company establishment, your secretary will prepare and file the confirmation statement with the Companies House, file dormant company accounts and submit dormant tax notification to the HMRC.

"Other business start-up agents will trick you into paying additional fees for taking your company off “dormant” status."

All service providers charge money for what they do. It will be novice to hear of a service provider who offers their services on a voluntary base, i.e., for free. If a company is dormant and needs to change its status to become active, a special form needs to be filed with the HMRC.

An active company would need to indicate where it keeps its registers and bookkeeping records, available for the inspection. Such documents can be kept at the registered office address or at the single alternative inspection location (SAIL) address. In addition, active companies would need to have their name displayed at the address of their actual place of business or their registered office address, if they are trading from another country. (Yes, this is required by law).

Consider now that your company secretary needs to process and submit all these documents with relevant government bodies. Do you really think that all this work should be done for free? In some cases, of course, it can be free, especially if you DIY - prepare and submit various forms to the Companies House and the HMRC, use your own home address as a registered office address and directors' service address (giving your home address visible on public records). Ask you current service provider, if they will be happy to handle all that for you for just £25-£50 per year?

At the end of their “expose” article about "other agents who mislead their clients", the same agent had offered exactly the same service, as described above, however, from their article it's not clear whether they provide this service for free or do, in fact, charge their clients for their work.

Even reputable bookkeeping and very well-known accountancy firms offer setting-up and keeping companies dormant for their clients with fees starting from £250 to per year.

We are charging the reasonable fee of £100 per company per year.