These days, of course, there are web sites galore that will complete your company registration for you. You’ll buy a ltd company name either of your own choosing or that someone else has made up: and then all the legal bits and pieces will be done on your behalf. Your brand new shiny limited company will be all sewn up and ready to go in a very short space of time – after which you can start trading with the confidence that only comes from that limited liability protection.
When you choose to purchase a limited company name, you have to go through a certain number of steps designed to ensure that you are purchasing the right kind of company. Buy a ltd company name and you will quickly discover that there are different levels of online service available to you. You can have a single hard copy certificate of your company formation (necessary in all cases); or you can have that hard copy plus Special Articles in hard copy; or you can have as many Advanced Articles as you need. It all depends on what you are doing, business wise, and what your relationship is to the company name you are buying.
Example: buy a ltd company name for the purpose of sole trading, and you would be best advised to get hold of a package that gives you hard and e copy certification, as well as multiple copies of your Special Articles. If, however, you are involved in buying multiple ltd company names (perhaps you are going in as director with clients or friends on a variety of small enterprises or companies), then you are better off buying a package that allows unlimited bespoke creation of Advanced Articles and delivers everything in both hard and e copy formats.
And what, you might ask, are Special and Advanced Articles? When you buy a ltd company name, or a bevy of limited company names, you are required by law to do certain things to make that company legal. One of these things is to lay down the Articles of Association, which are basically the rules of operation for the company. Special refers to a single company; Advanced may refer to multiple companies.