My father encouraged me from a young age to continue the family business. To do this, he sent me to England to study, where I received the necessary education in food technology. After that, I naively thought that starting a company in this country would be easy enough for me. I was wrong. It was difficult to do it on my own. The knowledge I received was not enough. That is why I turned to the experienced specialists of Imperial& Legal. They registered our company in England in a short space of time.
Dominic comes from Kenya. His father had his own business there — coffee plantations. He grew beans for sale and bought them from other farmers. This allowed him to export quite large quantities. The main market was the United States and Canada. Things were going well. Thanks to the income, the head of the family was able to buy some more large coffee fields. He bought them to expand his trade, as he had ambitious plans to enter European markets.
These ideas did not arise yesterday. The far-sighted businessman was planning for many years to come. It was with this in mind that he sent his eldest son Dominic to study in the UK.
That’s how we met the young man. He approached Imperial & Legal to apply for a student visa. After he graduated from university and took up an internship, we also helped him apply for a graduate visa.
Dominic’s education was a major. He had a bachelor’s degree in food technology. He had also completed a short course in business management, so he was ready to take on the challenge of opening a European branch of his father’s company.
Of course, he planned to launch the business in England, as he had already spent several years here, had learnt the local realities properly and had made the right connections. One of these useful contacts Dominic rightly considered Imperial & Legal to be one of them. His co-operation with us convinced him of the professionalism of our team. That’s why he relied on our legal support when setting up his new company.
The young man came for a consultation in advance. We outlined in detail the steps to be taken to register a legal entity and the best options to choose in order to optimise costs both at the start-up stage and in the future. As soon as the plan was finalised, we got to work.
Dominic is a 26 year old Kenyan national. He has lived in the UK for 5 years and is now planning to start his own business.
Legal support in the registration of a new company.
The first thing we had to decide on was the form of ownership. But since we were talking about a subsidiary of a foreign holding company, it was logical to favour LTD — a limited liability company. In this case, the foreign parent company could own a full block of shares. And Dominic could run the business despite the fact that he was not a British citizen.
We carried out a full range of procedures related to the registration of a new legal entity: we prepared the charter, drafted the constituent documents, checked the uniqueness of the name, submitted an application to the Registration Chamber and received a certificate of opening a new company.
We also provided the new company with an address where correspondence would arrive, a telephone number and a secretary to take calls. Of course, in the future Dominic planned to have his own office. But he didn’t have one yet, and government agencies require such things immediately in case they need to send a notice or issue an order.
This was not the end of our interaction with official institutions. Next we had to go to the tax office. There we registered Dominic’s company with the VAT system so that he could pay VAT as required by law. We also registered him as a Payroll payer so that he could hire employees and pay social contributions for them.
It was also necessary to solve another important task, without which opening a company simply did not make sense. It was necessary to open a corporate bank account for transactions with partners and clients. It is very difficult to open such an account on your own. But Imperial & Legal specialists have been working in their field for a long time and successfully, so for them such problems are solvable.
As Dominic was determined to get a full package from us, we offered him the Imperial package, which included, amongst other things, tourist visas for two people. As the young man was already living in England, we arranged these visas for his father and another employee of the firm, who were travelling to London to help Dominic launch his business.
As for him, we agreed that we would help him with his work visa when his graduate visa came to an end. After all, he now had his own company, where he was going to work. However, there was one nuance. Since the guy was a foreigner, even though he had founded the company, it still needed a sponsorship licence for him to be an employee.
We agreed to do it and to fix him there straight away. And subsequently, he could apply for a permanent residence permit, because a work visa, unlike a student visa, is an immigration visa, i.e. it gives the right to stay in Britain on a permanent basis and even to obtain citizenship of this country over time.
Before starting a business, it is worth consulting an experienced lawyer, as starting a company has many nuances. Imperial & Legal specialists will help you to do everything correctly from start to finish and avoid possible fines and problems with the law.
We will work with you to find a customised solution for your immigration, second citizenship, business, tax and other needs.
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