The Lemon Fool

Three years ago I dissolved one of my limited companies as it was surplus to requirements.

Do I still have to retain the accounting paperwork for 6 years, as I do with my live company?

And how long do I have to keep the books, Register of Members, Articles of Incorporation, etc?


In all my years in work I've never had to deal with this situation before.

Cheers
Slarti

Seven years, according to Companies House:

https://www.gov.uk/strike-off-your-comp ... ur-company

. . . and 40 years for the employers' liaibility insurance policy & schedule, if you had one!

Watis

Watis wrote:Seven years, according to Companies House:

https://www.gov.uk/strike-off-your-comp ... ur-company

. . . and 40 years for the employers' liaibility insurance policy & schedule, if you had one!

Watis

Thanks for that. They've changed that page since I did the deed, and for the better.

I'll go my usual route of envelopes with disposal dates, 1 per year for the next 5 years. What fun.

I did have employer's liability at one time, because it was required, even for a one man band like me, but I think it will get lost when I dispose of the final envelope as I was the only ever employee and I had no subcontractors.

Slarti

Slarti wrote:

Watis wrote:Seven years, according to Companies House:

https://www.gov.uk/strike-off-your-comp ... ur-company

. . . and 40 years for the employers' liaibility insurance policy & schedule, if you had one!

Watis

Thanks for that. They've changed that page since I did the deed, and for the better.

I'll go my usual route of envelopes with disposal dates, 1 per year for the next 5 years. What fun.

I did have employer's liability at one time, because it was required, even for a one man band like me, but I think it will get lost when I dispose of the final envelope as I was the only ever employee and I had no subcontractors.

Slarti

An envelope per year!

We are looking at a large cardboard box per year!

John

redsturgeon wrote:An envelope per year!

We are looking at a large cardboard box per year!

Well that is why I closed the company, the business had all moved into another one, quite naturally, so there was no point in having 2.

I call them envelopes, the box they came in calls them storage bags. But they won't be full.


Slarti

Snorvey wrote:Why would you need employers liability insurance 40 years after closing a company?

Some sort of disease as a result of the working conditions at the time (I'm thinking coal mining or something similar)?

Yes, I'm sure it along those lines.

I had a quick look at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2573/made, as you do! Assuming I've got the up to date legislation it includes:

4 (4) An employer shall retain each certificate issued to him under this regulation, or a copy of each such certificate, for a period of 40 years beginning on the date on which the insurance to which it relates commences or is renewed.

For those who are technically adept (not I), it also includes this:

4 (5) Where the employer is a company, retaining in any eye readable form a copy of a certificate in any one of the ways authorised by sections 722 and 723 of the Companies Act 1985 shall count as keeping a copy of it for the purposes of paragraph (4) above.

That part of the Companies Act amendments being all about the Use of computers for company records.

In 2050 or so, what will Slarti's descendents look for, an envelope or the computer records? I think I was told the insurers also keep such records.

PinkDalek wrote:

Snorvey wrote:Why would you need employers liability insurance 40 years after closing a company?

Some sort of disease as a result of the working conditions at the time (I'm thinking coal mining or something similar)?

Yes, I'm sure it along those lines.

I had a quick look at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2573/made, as you do! Assuming I've got the up to date legislation it includes:

4 (4) An employer shall retain each certificate issued to him under this regulation, or a copy of each such certificate, for a period of 40 years beginning on the date on which the insurance to which it relates commences or is renewed.

For those who are technically adept (not I), it also includes this:

4 (5) Where the employer is a company, retaining in any eye readable form a copy of a certificate in any one of the ways authorised by sections 722 and 723 of the Companies Act 1985 shall count as keeping a copy of it for the purposes of paragraph (4) above.

That part of the Companies Act amendments being all about the Use of computers for company records.

In 2050 or so, what will Slarti's descendents look for, an envelope or the computer records? I think I was told the insurers also keep such records.

Does 'eye readable form' mean that the printed version needs to be kept? the same one that is required to be displayed in the workplace, perhaps.

Because a computer file is not 'eye readable' without the necessary hardware to display it.

And don't be so quick to write Slarti off! He may well still be alive and kicking in 2050.

Watis

Watis wrote:Does 'eye readable form' mean that the printed version needs to be kept? the same one that is required to be displayed in the workplace, perhaps.

Because a computer file is not 'eye readable' without the necessary hardware to display it.

I don't know the answer and haven't checked through from the 1998 amendments to the present day. What I have found is a Companies Act 2006 section here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/200 ... ction/1135 which includes:

1135 Form of company records

(1) Company records—

(a) may be kept in hard copy or electronic form, and
(b) may be arranged in such manner as the directors of the company think fit,
provided the information in question is adequately recorded for future reference.

(2) Where the records are kept in electronic form, they must be capable of being reproduced in hard copy form.

Whether or not that applies to the Employers' Liability Insurance certificate I've no idea.

Watis wrote:And don't be so quick to write Slarti off! He may well still be alive and kicking in 2050.

Indeed he may, apologies. Whether or not he'll wish to look for the envelope or electronic records is another matter. I misspelt descendants but perhaps I should have written issue etc.

Watis wrote:And don't be so quick to write Slarti off! He may well still be alive and kicking in 2050.

But pushing 100, so quite able to claim the gaga defence if anybody wants to insist on an employer's liability certificate where there were no employees.


Slarti

PinkDalek wrote:

Snorvey wrote:
I had a quick look at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2573/made, as you do! Assuming I've got the up to date legislation it includes:

4 (4) An employer shall retain each certificate issued to him under this regulation, or a copy of each such certificate, for a period of 40 years beginning on the date on which the insurance to which it relates commences or is renewed.

.

You may want to check the 2008 amendment re the legal requirement being removed, albeit it is prudent to still retain.

"
Do I need to keep copies of certificates of insurance which are
out of date?
Since 1 October 2008 there has been no legal requirement for employers to keep
copies of out-of-date certificates.
However, employers are strongly advised to keep, as far as is possible, a complete
record of their employers’ liability insurance. This is because some diseases can
appear decades after exposure to their cause and former or current employees
may decide to make a claim against their employer for the period they were
exposed to the cause of their illness.
Employers that fail to hold the necessary insurance details risk having to meet the
costs of such claims themselves"

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse40.pdf

The entire issue is very interesting because Slarti was in effect the employer and the employee at the same time and since most employer's liability claims depend on negligence by the employer to succeed, notsure that it would work with a one man band. Slarti may be considered the author of his own misfortune.

He would not technically be suing his insurance company but his own company and since he was in charge of it...........

There may be certain circumstances when there would be an absolute liability but for the most part it would require Slarti to prove negligence on the part of his company.

I think he can safely throw away the employer's liability papers.

Dod

Yes Snorvey that is right, but I am not sure if it works where the employer and the company are essentially the same.

Dod

Snorvey wrote:I recall there was a guy up north who ran some kind of industrial business. His son worked for him and, unfortunately, was killed in an accident in the workplace.

The father sued his own company for something or other and the company's Employer Liability insurance paid out.

(Sorry about the sketchy details - Dod's post reminded me of it.)

It was a Shetlands building company, I think -

A bereaved Shetland father is seeking £100,000 in damages from the firm where he is a director after the death of his son at work.

Joiner James Thomson, 26, died almost four years ago after a canister of expanding foam he was using exploded and struck him on the chest while at a job in Levenwick.

His father Dennis, 60, is now suing Dennis Thomson Builders Ltd for compensation in a civil jury case at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2011/02/ ... g-accident

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Charlottesquare wrote:You may want to check the 2008 amendment re the legal requirement being removed, albeit it is prudent to still retain.

"
Do I need to keep copies of certificates of insurance which are
out of date?
Since 1 October 2008 there has been no legal requirement for employers to keep
copies of out-of-date certificates.
However, employers are strongly advised to keep, as far as is possible, a complete
record of their employers’ liability insurance. This is because some diseases can
appear decades after exposure to their cause and former or current employees
may decide to make a claim against their employer for the period they were
exposed to the cause of their illness.
Employers that fail to hold the necessary insurance details risk having to meet the
costs of such claims themselves"

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse40.pdf

Thanks for that, which I had at the back of my mind (somewhere), probably based on what I'd read at TMF back in the day, but clearly forgot about it entirely!

Looking at ours, it includes as a definition of Employee "Any person under a contract of service or apprenticeship with the Insured". Presumably an officer of a company, without a contract of service, is not deemed to be an employee for these purposes, in the same way that NMW doesn't apply?