Reusing dissolved company name?

Reusing dissolved company name?

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Hi all,

I used to be a director of a ltd company that was dissolved by companies house in 2011 due to non filing of annual returns (this was the accountants fault as he did not submit them but the listed director addresses were also incorrect so we did not receive the notifications and hence the company was dissolved by companies house without us knowing).

There were no creditors (and basically no assets) apart from a very small amount of tax due to HMRC for that year so no one contested the dissolution.

I am about to start a new company doing a similar thing and would like to use the same name as we had previously (it's not using any previous company assets etc). My accountant has said there is absolutely no problem with doing this as it's an entirely new company and the name is available again to setup for a new company (and our involvement in the previous one is irrelevant).

I understand from reading various posts/docs that there are restrictions on directors reusing company names if the company went into liquidation but from what i can see there is no restriction if it was dissolved by companies house. I have however seen multiple people on these and other forums saying it's a bad idea to reuse a name and it's better to use a new one but noone seems to give any concrete reasons why (apart from bad association with the previous company which is not a problem).

Could any of you confirm that my accountant is correct and we can setup a new company using the previously dissolved name and that this won't cause any problems? Or if there are any legal ramifications then could you let me know what these are and 'why' reusing it might cause problems?

Thanks so much,

Dave

Replies (3)

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By Maslins
06th Mar 2014 17:27

I'd don't see much problem with it.  Only possible issue (unlikely to happen in your case) is if you use the company name of a previous company which owed lots of people lots of money, you might get some snotty letters (or worse).  Reality is your new company will legally be completely different to the old one, but obviously people don't like to get nasty letters whether there's a legal claim there or not.

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Replying to WhichTyler:
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By deshg
20th Mar 2014 14:33

Thanks very much Maslin, that is what i thought. I don't mind about the letters as the previous company didn't owe any money (apart from a very small amount to HMRC) so we shouldn't be getting any letters. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything illegal or incorrect about doing this!

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By bernard michael
07th Mar 2014 08:58

Check with Cos House to be certain. They seem to make up their own rules

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