Legal Advise

Aside from the day job, I'm a company director and company secretary for a limited co that turns over a matter of pence. Even that is a big responsibility - basically if it all goes pear-shaped, which is highly unlikely, my personal liability would put me in very deep doo doos. I would never have agreed to get involved if I didn't know exactly what the deal was.

Basic guidance on accountabilities is here:

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/about/guidance.shtml

Originally Posted by CoolGirl

Aside from the day job, I'm a company director and company secretary for a limited co that turns over a matter of pence. Even that is a big responsibility - basically if it all goes pear-shaped, which is highly unlikely, my personal liability would put me in very deep doo doos. I would never have agreed to get involved if I didn't know exactly what the deal was.

Basic guidance on accountabilities is here:

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/about/guidance.shtml

Sensible - just the way it should be done, but surely you have limited your individual liability to keep you out of the doo doos? That's partly the point and why you must inlude 'Limited' in your Co title to reflect that limitation?

I have a service company which I have never used. I incorporated it only because when I did locum work, I thought the agency would only give me assignments if I was trading as a company but that turned out to be wrong, and anyway I would have got clobbered by IR35.

However as soon as I registered it I was inundated with paper from the Inland Revenue chasing corporation tax and PAYE.

It has never traded, I'm now having it struck off and it can't come a day too soon.

Ed

Originally Posted by Triumphumphumph

Sensible - just the way it should be done, but surely you have limited your individual liability to keep you out of the doo doos? That's partly the point and why you must inlude 'Limited' in your Co title to reflect that limitation?

I'm not just talking about financial liabiity - credibility to do any future business or manage personal effects can be seriously affected as well.

[Spiderman]

And if you are any way involved in negotiation the sale of or offering the sale of property, whether here ar abroad you will be heal accountable under the Estate Agents Act, see this - its brief, http://www.dti.gov.uk/consumers/fact...page38024.html including the Property Misdescriptions Act see here http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1991...10029_en_1.htm and as mentioned before the Mondey Laundering Regulations.

And you have to set up clients accounts and be finacialy responsible that they are handled and managed correctly.

All in all a big headache. There are other ways you could assist this guy find property and be paid for it without going to all this troble but then you leave yourself even more exposed imho.

Originally Posted by Ed

I have a service company which I have never used. I incorporated it only because when I did locum work, I thought the agency would only give me assignments if I was trading as a company but that turned out to be wrong, and anyway I would have got clobbered by IR35.

However as soon as I registered it I was inundated with paper from the Inland Revenue chasing corporation tax and PAYE.

It has never traded, I'm now having it struck off and it can't come a day too soon.

Ed

Yeah IR35 bought an end to my contracting career too. To be fair, it was a tax loophole but on the other hand closing it made the contracting business far more paperwork heavy and less dynamic, wouldn't go so far as to say it killed contracting but it came pretty close.

Thanks for all your views and advise. I am not leaving my day job for this - no way at least at this early stage.

This is the setup (in theory) of this new venture.

Me and a mate will setup a company (either here or abroad-not sure yet) that will be developers and estate agents. So buy land, build on it and sell on.

The whole thing will be taking place in Greece (as this is where I'm from). Mate has some capital that he will put in to start the business and I will deal with the Greek stuff obviously

There is a legit (as far as I know) company in the UK that wants to join us in projects. Am I liable for the other company that joins us in these projects?

Reason why I ask all these questions is NOT because I know that the other company is dodgy BUT because I have learned to cover my backside always! So before I accept anything I need to know how not to get done over - be it a friend or an unknown.

[Spiderman]

I dont se any reason why you would be liable for the other firms behaviour if all they are doing is working in conjunction with you.
I'm not liable for my suppliers delivering late to me and hence making me late delivering to clients.
Just get a decent Terms of Business written up by a leagl pro who routinely does these things for property companies.
Also i'd be tempted to set it all up in Greece. I kow nothing of their beaurocracy(sp) but it cant be as bad as it is here can it???

The way I see it, is that you are liable for the 'other' company's performance insofar as it affects your business performance and your customers, particularly if the end delivery is a relationship between your company alone and the client and where you source sub contracted stuff is your problem. That doesn't mean to say that you are responsible for their debts or other misgivings from a Company Law position - subject - to your contractural relationship.

As said before make sure you have a robust contract/agreement in place.

Coolgirl makes a very good comment regarding reputation. I have worked in the building industry for 30 years and much depends on reputation for longevity and reputation of the building industry generally is very fragile. Developers that simply act as middle men don't enjoy the best of that I'm afraid, at least not in this country.

Good luck

Hehe trust me Spiderman paperwork is similar if not worse!! Taxing is another issue which I'm looking into at the moment.

Reputation wise - well I can only try and time will tell