- Hi everyone.
I'm Attorney Aiden Durham, 180 Law Co. in Colorado
and you are watching All Up in Yo' Business.
(cheerful guitar music)
On this episode of All Up in Yo' Business
we're gonna talk about registered agents.
What is a registered agent?
What does a registered agent do?
And when you need one,
but first don't forget to like, subscribe and share
and check the description for links
to additional information and resources.
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All right, so let's talk about registered agents.
A registered agent is an individual or entity
that has been appointed by an LLC or a corporation
to receive legal documents on behalf of the business.
For example, if an LLC is sued
then the party doing the suing will have to serve the LLC
with court documents.
The registered agent will be the one who accepts
service of process on behalf of the LLC.
Well, the specific laws will vary by state,
every state requires that LLCs and corporations
designate a registered agent.
This applies to the state where your business is formed
as well as any other states
where you've registered as a foreign entity
or you're otherwise authorized to conduct business.
For the most part,
the only requirements for the registered agent are
if the registered agents individual
they must be 18 years of age or older,
they must consent to being appointed as the registered agent
and they must have a physical street address in that state
so not a P.O. box.
So if you have an LLC that's formed in Colorado
you need a registered agent with a physical address
in Colorado.
And if the LLC is also registered
as a foreign entity in California for example,
then you need a registered agent
with a physical address in California as well.
Also, this isn't an actual like law or statute
in a lot of states,
but there should be someone physically present
at the registered agent address
during normal business hours.
The registered agent can be a member or manager
or other person involved in the business
or it can be someone outside of the business.
The registered agent on its own does not have any agency
or authority to act on behalf of the business,
except as it relates to accepting legal documents
on its behalf of course.
But aside from that
the registered agent doesn't have any ownership rights,
doesn't have any voting rights or any other authorization
to participate in the business operations.
So let's say you're a business owner, a single member LLC
operating the business out of your home.
You can appoint yourself as the LLC's registered agent
and use your own home address
as the registered agent address.
There's nothing inherently wrong or unlawful with that
but sometimes we may not want to be our own
registered agents.
The name and address of the registered agent
will be part of public record
and available for pretty much anybody to see.
So if you work from home
you may not want your home address to be published to
you know, the whole world.
And remember the registered agent's role
is to receive legal documents on behalf of the LLC.
That means your gossipy nosy neighbor
might see you getting served with a lawsuit in your pj's
or your teenage son may answer the door and then run in
and interrupt your Zoom book club meeting
or even worse announce it while you're on a call
with a potential client or worse than that,
maybe you go on a vacation for a few weeks
leaving the house unattended.
That could potentially mean that you miss important notices
or deadlines because you're not receiving those documents.
So maybe you don't wanna be your own registered agent,
but maybe your mom lives down the street from you,
she's retired, she doesn't have anything else going on,
could she be your registered agent?
Sure.
As long as she consents to it.
Your mom, your best friend, your boyfriend
whoever it is as long as they're 18 or older,
have a physical address in the state and consent to it
any one of them can be the registered agent.
But usually the better idea is to use
a corporate registered agent service.
Registered agent services are business entities
that accept legal documents on behalf of LLCs
and corporations for a fee of course.
Registered agent services
they give you peace of mind though
so you can focus on running your business
you don't have to worry about your nosy neighbors
or making sure you're home all the time
in case something gets delivered.
And most registered agent services are national companies
that have offices in every state.
So you can use the same registered agent
for every state where your business is registered
and help keep things kind of in one spot.
There are a lot of registered agent services out there.
The fees are pretty reasonable
usually it's gonna be like around 100 bucks per year.
If you do a web search for registered agent services
in your state, you'll see that you have a lot of options.
In addition to having a physical office in the state,
there are a few more things that you should look for
if you're comparing registered agent services.
For example, will they help with compliance management?
Many registered agent services will send reminders
for annual report filings and other important deadlines
and some of them will actually file the annual reports
for you so you don't even have to think about it.
What about their document management?
How will you get notified when documents are received?
Make sure it's a company that scans
all of the documents that they received for you
so you can easily access and view them online.
What about their availability and customer support?
Can you easily contact someone to answer questions?
These are all things that you should be looking into
in registered agent services.
But 'cause I'm cool like that I already did the research
and I linked to some of my
favorite registered agent services in the description.
When it comes to actually appointing the registered agent
this is usually done on the articles of organization
for an LLC or articles of incorporation for a corporation.
Each state is different,
some require a separate signed consent form
for the registered agent, something like that.
And then if you need to change the registered agent later on
you'll do that by filing the appropriate form
with the secretary of state.
The name of the form and the fees associated with it
are gonna vary by state.
In Colorado for example, we would file a statement of change
and the filing fee is like 10 or 20 bucks.
But pro tip most registered agent services
will file the form for you and many will even do it for free
they'll even pay the filing fee.
So again, if you're searching
and trying to find the right registered agent service,
I have linked to a few of my favorites
down in the description.
That's all for this episode folks.
Drop a comment below, let me know what you think
and be sure to check the description
for additional information and resources.
And finally, thank you again to our partners
at Atomic Social for helping make this video possible.
Make sure you visit this link to book your free call
and take advantage of their special website offer.
Thank you all so much for watching.
I'm Aiden Durham and I'll see you next time.
(bouncy music)