Buy Limited Companies

Irrespective of whether you want your business to become a public limited company or a private limited company, the Articles of Association and the Memorandum of Association are two of the most important documents which can be linked to setting up either of these statuses. Used as part of the documents filed with Companies House upon company registration, it is important to know the functions of these documents and to complete them carefully. This report will explain more.

Each document has a particular purpose, with the aim of Articles of Association being to establish the connection between any shareholders the company may have, and the directors who are at the helm of managing the company and moving it forward.

By law, this document needs to be filed in order for a business to become publicly or privately limited. One of the main purposes of this document is as part of the Constitution of the company, which can cover how shares are distributed, the types of shares which are in use and the influence that a shareholder may have with regards to voting processes that may be needed for key decisions.

Companies House can outline in detail what may be defined as articles, through a document which is known as Table A. Available online through the official Companies House website, this document can be of some use once all the legalese and formal language has been fully deciphered. For most small companies, this document can be highly relevant – although it is worth noting that there are differences between Table A for privately and publicly limited companies.

Meanwhile, the Memorandum of Association is another document which is necessary when registration is being sought from Companies House. Despite this, the document no longer holds the authority of being part of the constitution from Autumn 2009 onwards.

If anything, the Memorandum of Association can be used for a company, their directors and their secretaries to state the intentions that they have. There have been changes to this document’s role over time, which has meant that companies are no longer as restricted in their activity as they once were. This was primarily due to the ‘Objects’ clause, which aimed to outline exactly what the company’s role was. A company would then have to work in these parameters, which is what used to make the process of drawing up this clause such an exhaustive process – many lawyers had to ensure that a company’s potential growth wasn’t limited in any way.

With the rules being relaxed, there is nowhere near as much information required in the Memorandum of Association as there was before.

And there you are – an in-depth look in the two official documents which you need to put forward when corresponding with Companies House. In this report, you have learned what the Articles and Memorandum of Association are. Be sure to have your solicitors at the ready in order to ensure that this step is done right, because it can certainly be something which is a hindrance to do more than once.