Third party as Registered Business Address

selfi

I use an office that serves as my business address and my secretary. They forward post to me, I am at different location. I never gave them permission to read or open my post but they do it. Does anyone have similar issues? How to deal with it? Was anyone able to terminate such services and get money back? I'm quite pis..d because they can compromise sensitive data and there is nothing I can do and I even pay them to do it.

Graham

selfi wrote: »

I use an office that serves as my business address and my secretary. They forward post to me, I am at different location. I never gave them permission to read or open my post but they do it. Does anyone have similar issues? How to deal with it? Was anyone able to terminate such services and get money back? I'm quite pis..d because they can compromise sensitive data and there is nothing I can do and I even pay them to do it.

Did you ask them to stop doing it?

Are they acting as the Company Secretary for your Limited Company? Are they opening post addressed to The Company Secretary?

selfi

> Did you ask them to stop doing it?
It was agreed that they will forward the post to my address instead scanning it and sending as attachment in emails, I specifically stressed that if must be posted, so there is no reason to keep opening it. But I didn't tell them to stop that as it was obvious from the above statement I thought.

> Are they acting as the Company Secretary for your Limited Company?
Yes.

> Are they opening post addressed to The Company Secretary?
No. They are addressed to my Company Name LTD and I am a single director.

Graham

selfi wrote: »

> Did you ask them to stop doing it?
It was agreed that they will forward the post to my address instead scanning it and sending as attachment in emails, I specifically stressed that if must be posted, so there is no reason to keep opening it. But I didn't tell them to stop that as it was obvious from the above statement I thought.

Ask them to stop. Although see next answer to understand why they might not.

selfi wrote: »

> Are they acting as the Company Secretary for your Limited Company?

>Yes

As company secretary they could legitimately argue they are legally entitled to open post for the company as they are an official of your company. As officials they have legal obligations for which they may receive post addressed to the company/company secretary.

selfi wrote: »

No. They are addressed to my Company Name LTD and I am a single director.

A single director with a 3rd party company secretary.

DubTony

selfi wrote: »

> Are they acting as the Company Secretary for your Limited Company?
Yes.

> Are they opening post addressed to The Company Secretary?
No. They are addressed to my Company Name LTD and I am a single director.

Can you clarify?. The post is titled "Secretary Services"

OP, Company Secretary is a lot different to secretarial services. The Company Secretary doesn't open the post, make the tea and get your slippers.

From Office of Director of Coprorate Enforcement

Company Secretaries’ Responsibilities
A company secretary’s main functions are to oversee the company’s day to day administration.
Their main statutory duties include:
signing the company's annual returns and certifying the financial statements;
disclose certain personal information, such as: name, residential address;
making out the statements of affairs in the winding-up of a company.
Their main administrative duties include:
keeping the company's minutes of meetings;
keeping, and making available for inspection the company's registers, such as register of members;
communicating with the company's members, for example - notifying the members of meetings.

DubTony

Graham wrote: »

A single director with a 3rd party company secretary.

It could be that he's not married. :pac:

selfi

> Can you clarify?. The post is titled "Secretary Services"

You are right. The company provides two services: Office Secretary and Registered Office Address. The second one provides post forwarding and here we had agreement I mentioned above.

> It could be that he's not married.

Nobody wants me

Graham

If the address company, or one of it's staff is listed as your company secretary with the Companies Registration Office, I would expect this to give them some legal standing over post that arrives addressed to your company.

DubTony

Graham wrote: »

If the address company, or one of it's staff is listed as your company secretary with the Companies Registration Office, I would expect this to give them some legal standing over post that arrives addressed to your company.

Safe to assume it's a secretarial service / phone answering, accepting post etc. Nobody there is responsible for the running of the company. On that basis, if he tells them not to open his post, they probably shouldn't.

newacc2015

Would you still keep them as you registered business address and just get all your post to a PO Box. Your local sorting centre will have one