Alison Wheeler wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com said:

On Sun, October 5, 2008 16:07, Andrew Turvey wrote:

1. Form full company from the start, by post

In practice, we would have to get each of the directors to print, sign and post a copy of the signature pages to the company secretary who then puts them all together and submits them to Companies House.

2. Form full company from the start, by meeting

An alternative is to arrange a physical meeting where all five directors get together and sign the papers. This would take time to organise.

3. Form single member, single director company and then appoint remaining

directors on incorporation The third option is to form the company with a single member and a single director (being me). I would sign all the forms myself, submit to Companies House and then admit the other directors as members and appoint the others as directors as soon as the company is formed I think it would be easier and we would save time doing it this way. However, I would only want to do this if everyone was comfortable with this approach.

A few things with these suggestions.

1. The forms, and more to the point the Articles and Memorandum, legally need to be signed by all the Directors (or rather the 'Persons desiring to form a company') at the same time in order that the signatures can be jointly witnessed, so #1 is out.

2. Everyone seeking to have a relationship with the organisation will request (certified) copies of the AoA and MoA and the first thing they will look at is the number of people involved (ie. that it isn't someone's idea of a 'get rich quick' scheme) and having just a single director would put a severe kibosh on that, hence #3 is out.

#2 is the only way to go ...

Alison

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#1

Only Form 12 has to be witnessed by the JP, which only needs to be signed by one director. The M&A can have a separate witness for each signature.

Having people in separate locations sign standard documents and then bringing them together is standard practice - that's how I bought my house, for instance. I don't foresee any problems with this approach.

#2

Just out of interest is this how Wikimedia #1 was formed? If so, how much of a problem did you find bringing everyone together in a single place?

#3

You don't see the list of current directors by looking at the formation documents - you look on Companies House. It will be clear that we have 5 directors regardless of the method of formation.

Andrew