Legal ownership/transfer of forum?

[Mr Lucky]

I appreciate this is something that in an ideal world I would take legal advice from a solicitor and anu advice I get here is informal, but I'm sure there are some people here who have gone through the process of transferring ownership of a forum. It would be nice if I can do it without finding a lwayer, the last one I had was very expensive and useless.

The forum was started by myself, and income came in that was declared to HMRC as part of my personal (sole trader) income. I donate all profits to charity.

Two years ago I decided to form a Limited company that "took over" the forum, mainly because as company I could separate the accounts from my other activities, which made my claim that al profits are doenated to charity totally transparent as the company had its own bank account and finacial records.

However I never got around to legally transferring the forum to the company.

So my question is, can I legally transfer ownership to the company with a simple letter, handing it over? Does some nominal payment need to be made? If it is a letter, does anyone have or can link to a simple form letter to do this?

(NB one further complication may be that although the company now pays for the xenforo and aaddon licenese, and declares all income, the hosting is paid for by my other company)

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this for me

 

[sbj]

I can't help you with your question but in order to be able to help you, you need to clarify in which country you live.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I can't help you with your question but in order to be able to help you, you need to clarify in which country you live.

Of course I do, yes. I am in the UK.

 

[DanielP]

While I'm not a lawyer you should be able to transfer "legal" ownership by simply filling out a bill of sale denoting what is being sold or transferred (i.e. the forum, it's rights, content etc) and that you the previous owner release all claims to it.

Now this may be a little murky because you technically own both the company and the forum but in the end I doubt anyone would truly question who owns it unless you were to say sell the company and then you are dealing with a different party who would want to see that proof.

As far as the hosting goes, you could consider yourself (sole trader) as the hosting provider for the Limited company. Just generate invoices and send to them and then the Limited company can pay you for hosting of the forums.

Hope this helps!

 

[Mr Lucky]

Thanks DanielP, yes I think you are probably right regarding an invoice. I also just remembered the company I transferred it to registered the trademark last year so I think should be belt and braces proof.

I don't think there is an issue transferring from sole trader to limited company, they are two different entities in the eye of the law and HMRC.

My reasons for getting this done is pure paranoia. Although we do our best to not allow copyright infringement, if the forum is owned by the limited company then any suit has to be against the comapny which has quite limited assets. There is also the infinitessimally and extremely unlikely case of GDPR coming after it's 4% or 20 million or whatever it is.

 

[DanielP]

Ahh yuep all the fun of the GDPR.

Just to continue down the paranoid route, I'd make sure any licenses, plugins etc are all registered under accounts owned by the Limited company and not yourself. Little things like that could be overlooked during transitions. The more things in the companies name the better off any case would be.

 

[Slavik]

It's been a while since I did real accounting, but top of my head you would value the website, then list it as a company asset in the form of a directors loan to the company to the sum of the valuation.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Ahh yuep all the fun of the GDPR.

Just to continue down the paranoid route, I'd make sure any licenses, plugins etc are all registered under accounts owned by the Limited company and not yourself. Little things like that could be overlooked during transitions. The more things in the companies name the better off any case would be.

Yes I'll do a detailed invoice to include all addons and update all licenses.

 

[Mr Lucky]

It's been a while since I did real accounting, but top of my head you would value the website, then list it as a company asset in the form of a directors loan to the company to the sum of the valuation.

OK, well I have a meeting with my accountant soon, I'll make sure that's all covered. As a non-profit forum I think the value is very low.