The memorandum and articles of association are two key company documents. The memorandum of association demonstrates that an organization’s initial shareholders (often called subscribers) have agreed to return together to form an organization, whilst the articles of association set out how the corporate goes to be managed.
On this post, we’re going to clarify what it is best to do if you’ve gotten lost the memorandum and articles of association documents.
Don’t panic
Firstly, by their very nature, the memorandum and articles of association don’t contain any sensitive information, so whilst misplacing them could also be a nuisance, you don’t must be concerned from a security perspective. They are literally already in the general public domain, on the Firms House register.
Secondly, and as we’ll highlight on this post, they’re remarkably easy to locate.
In the event you formed your organization with Rapid Formations
Check your emails
As soon as your limited company was incorporated at Firms House, you’ll have received an email from support@rapidformations.co.uk with the topic line: ‘Rapid Formations: Order Ref X [unique reference number] Order Fulfilment’.
This email may have included a PDF attachment of your memorandum and articles of association, together with other vital information and documents referring to your order, including your invoice, certificate of incorporation, share certificate(s), company authentication code, and more.
So, checking your emails needs to be your first step when in search of your memorandum and articles of association.
Log in to your Online Client Portal
You can even discover a PDF copy of the documents in your Online Client Portal (provided that you’ve gotten not updated the articles of association since incorporation – if you’ve gotten, see the Firms House section below). To access this:
1. Select ‘Login’ on our homepage, enter your username and password, and click on ‘Login’.
2. Click on ‘My Firms’.
3. Select the ‘View’ button.
4. Select the ‘Documents’ tab.
5. Select the ‘Download’ button next to ‘Memorandum & Articles (Full Document)’.
6. You’ll immediately be presented along with your memorandum and articles of association, together with the choice to download the document to your computer and/or print it.
Retrieving your documents from Firms House
In the event you formed your organization directly with Firms House, you have to to get your memorandum and articles of association using the Firms House search function.
Also, in the event you used Rapid Formations to form your organization but have since amended your articles of association, you can even must retrieve them from Firms House, as our system doesn’t retain copies of updated articles. We’ll show you how one can do that below.
If you’ve gotten not modified the memorandum and articles of association
1. Go to GOV.UK’s ‘Search the register’ tool. Enter your organization name within the search box and choose the magnifying glass icon.
2. From the outcomes list, find your organization name and choose it.
3. Select the ‘Filing history’ tab.
4. You might be presented with an inventory of filings that the corporate has made. Locate the ‘Incorporation’ document and choose ‘View PDF’.
If your organization was formed using the Model articles of association, you might be notified of this next to ‘Incorporation’. When this happens, you is not going to give you the option to view the articles of association here – just the memorandum of association. As a substitute, you possibly can download the document via this link: Model articles of association. Please note, due to ‘default’ nature of the Model articles of association, the document is not going to include an organization name, company number, or some other information that is particular to your organization.
5. You might be taken to your memorandum of association, articles of association (in the event you didn’t use Model articles), certificate of incorporation and the IN01 forms (used to register your organization) – you possibly can then download the documents to your computer and/or print them.
If you’ve gotten modified the articles of association since incorporation (model or not)
1. Go to GOV.UK’s ‘Search the register’ tool. Enter your organization name within the search box and choose the magnifying glass icon.
2. From the list of results, click on the right company name.
3. Select the ‘Filing history’ tab.
4. You might be presented with an inventory of filings that the corporate has made. First, get the memorandum of association which you’ll find within the ‘Incorporation’ documents. Scroll to this section and choose ‘View PDF’.
5. You might be taken to your memorandum of association, old articles of association (in the event you didn’t use Model articles), certificate of incorporation and IN01 forms (used to register your organization) – you possibly can then download these documents to your computer and/or print them.
6. Now it’s time to get the updated articles of association. Return to the list of filings and locate the ‘Memorandum and Articles of Association’ document (if the corporate has modified the articles greater than once, find essentially the most recent version) and choose ‘View PDF’.
7. You might be taken to your updated articles of association – you possibly can then download and/or print the document.
So there you’ve gotten it, how one can find your lost memorandum and articles of association
We hope you’ve gotten found this post helpful.
Please leave a comment if you’ve gotten any questions and we’ll be pleased to assist.
