Author: Jason Williams
Published: April 19, 2018
Reading time: 2 minutes
This article is 4 years old.
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You are legally obliged to include your correct legal identity on all order forms, invoices, letters and other business-related documents as well as your website.
Failure to do so can result in Trading Standards becoming “interested”, which inevitably leads to them endeavouring to find other issues with your paperwork and where they can, more matters beyond just that.
It can also lead to a hefty fine for non-compliance.
For example, say you are known as “Pumping Cars” but are a limited company, you must state that it is “Pumping Cars Ltd”. If your limited company name is considerably different to its trading name, your business stationery can say “Pumping Cars is a trading name of Plethora of Complaints Ltd”.
The purpose of this is to ensure that those who enter into contracts with you know the precise legal entity of who they are doing business with.
We have seen cases where a consumer has issued court papers against clients, not putting the word “Limited” on the claim form. Where this happens, you are unlikely to succeed in getting a court to throw the case out just on that – they will simply add the word “Limited” to the Claim Form.
As a matter of routine, you should check from time-to-time that your business stationery as well as your website contains, amongst other things, the correct legal name of your business as well as an address. This applies whether or not the business is a limited company or a sole trader/partnership.
