Starting business in England from abroad

Well, I want to register a business in England from abroad. Because I don't have a registered address in UK, I am planning to use one of these formation agents from the official list and plan to use their addresses for registration purposes.

But I have no clue about the companies on the list. I will be glad if you could tell me about which ones are the leaders in this field, and help me for my spesific condition.

You also need to get your post which you will receive on that address. Do you need to open UK Bank account for your business. How will you manage your annual return (Not VAT Return) and how will you file you company accounts?
Think about these issues.

If you're planning to run a company from abroad, you should first contact the possible agents and ask whether they can store annual accounts for you which you will have to prepare at least every six months and store at your registered office address. I didn't realise that and now have to change the office address.

I've recently contacted Capital Business Links LTD, and am really impressed with their attitude. They're not official Companies House agent, but they can also register a company for you and provide you with a registered office address. http://www.cblfinance.com/ They charge 90 quid a year, so a bit more than for example the Companies Made Simple, but they forward any kind of post to your e-mail address. They always forward statutory post and a reasonable amount of other mail. At least you might be sure that none of your letters will end up in a bin.

I did not find any useful review about these companies on internet, therefore, I checked their reputations by their google and alexa ranks. (I know it doesn't mean much, and being popular is also doesn't mean they service better) Anyway. I found Companies Made Simple, and used their service.

My first impressions are:

• Their packages seemed comprehensive, their website and services seemed proffesional. They respond your messages within a day. Even though some of their competitors were responded in an hour, anyway.
• Their prices are irritatingly non-stable. For example, if you want to buy package X which is 100 GBP. Don't buy that! Go for the low priced Y package. When you are registering, they will give you the "opportunity" to register package X for 90GBP, for example. The difference is not something to mention, but irritative.
• If you will want to refund something, you will not be able to refund it if you don't buy another package. They will also charge you for an un-mentioned "administrative fee" for the refund process.
• You will not have a bank account, anyway, if you are not a UK resident. There were some other companies who was offering bank accounts for foreigners as well, I wish I had tried one of those.

It's an relatively simple thing to do, any of these should be able to do it with little difficulty. Ultimately, all they are doing is registering the company, acting as company secretary and providing a correspondence address for you in England.

If you intend to trade any reasonable amount, you might consider finding an accountant since they can deal with all this in one place (including your accounting), that's what my accountant does.