Company Re-registration - do not ignore

[TheTravelBug]

From January 2008 a new ruling came into force and a new company registry was set up. All Bulgarian companies registered before the start of 2008 must now re-register. This is compulsory. Failure to do so before the deadline will mean your company is struck off and therefore you would lose any assets it held - i.e. property owned by the company.

The procedure is relatively simple. If you can visit Bulgaria this makes it much easier as then a lawyer can prepare the declaration required and you can sign this in front of the notary, you also need to re-sign all pages of the original company contract and translations need to be done.

This paperwork then all goes to the registry, a check is made to ensure your company name is available (as rules regarding this also changed), a certificate is given to show that your company has been re-registered.

However, currently this process is taking around a month.

Costs depend of course on what company/lawyer you use but to give you an idea they will be around 100 Euros for legal costs/agency fees to fill in and deal with submission of all paperwork and then a further 100 to 130 Euros for translation cost, new company stamp if required, certificates, court fees....

DEADLINE: Officially it is the end of 2010 BUT there is a complication to this......

All companies have to submit a financial report (prepared by accountant as part of the annual tax return) and file this by 30th June 2008, you cannot do this until you re-register and so effectively this means you have to re-register before then. If you do not re-register and do not submit financial report you will be fined, if you re-register, you have to submit this report....

Of course they may change the rules, but they may not....

So PLEASE deal with re-registration AS SOON AS POSSIBLE so everything is sorted.

[denise]

Hi Rachel - and hello to anyone else checking out the forum!

Just checking out updated forum, lots of new and interesting stuff!! just reading about re-registration, is everything going ok with ours? That off-plan development looks interesting in Novo Selo!! maybe we could do something similar for our plot!! Right bi for now, going to check out rest of site.

Denise

[TheTravelBug]

Helloooooooooo! You maybe getting an email about needing to sign a financial report but as you have alrady contacted lawyer about doing re-registration, yours should all be in hand already.

Rachel

[TheTravelBug]

ok, for my clients here is a breakdown of charges and brief explanation:

The actual re-registration legal fees are 100 E

To change address to your house or another office (which you need to do) – 100 E

To use lawyer’s office address if you do not intend to spend much time in Bulgaria – 50 E

Then the actual fees for the process in he Trade Registry/Court:

New Company Obstacles – 15 Euros
Certificates issued for completion of each stage – 15 E
Court Fees – 5 Euros
Bank Fees in Court – 10 E
Trade Agency application fees – 50 E
New Stamp if changing company address – 20 E

Translation of all documents for court/trade registry required if you do not intend to come to Bulgaria and notarise documents in front of notary here saying you understand them and know contents of them all:

Re-registration – 75 Euros
Change of Address – 50 Euros
Annual financial report – 75 Euros

So total if you intend to re-register, change address and use lawyer's office address = 565 Euros.

If documents are sent to UK, they will all require notarising at a Notary Public and sending back so will likely be a further £60 fee or so for doing this at notary in UK, although fees will vary from place to place.

Basically you need to get your company re-registered (currently taking at least 40 working days), once you have the certificate this has been done, you need to file financial report for your company (long winded document the accountant will prepare about annual tax returns, your company accounts, assets etc...) and file this.

Currently the deadline for filing the annual financial report is 30th June 2008 but we are hoping for a change of law to be annouced shortly which may remove this restriction.

PLEASE NOTE: Failure to re-register your company means it will be dissolved and all assets i.e. your properties, will be sold off by government. Do not take this lightly! VERY important you deal with re-registration as soon as possible.

Rachel

[gwdl26412]

hi rachel
we have just come back from bg, this is the first we heard about company reg, we brought our property through bulgarian properties in plovdiv, 2 yrs ago, we have had no problems with them, but although we paid them 600e to pay bills and look after our prop, we have not seen or heard from them in 2yrs, we have not paid any bills until jan this yr, we send emails and ask if there is anything to pay, they tell us nothing to pay, so we do not know about property tax or comp reg, although the mayor of our village looks after our prop, his parents pay our bills, but now i want to close the company account, and get back my power of attorney, can you please advise us what we have to do to achieve this, also can i say hello to you, we met you in cherpan for a meal last year with our interpreter tony, we went to cherpan hotel, we own a property in opalchenets nr mirovo.
regards
geoff.

[TheTravelBug]

Yes your company needs re-registering if set up before 1st Jan 2008. This requires an application to Trade Registry and various other documents to be sent along as well including company contract and translations etc. And then your annual company tax/financial report has to be sent in or published.

Wow 600E is an awful lot. Each year there should be around 10 to 20 levs payable as municipality tax and rubbish collection tax.

You should also have had to pay an accountant to do tax returns each year, although no tax to pay usually, you still have to submit these or heavy fines.

You can simply ask for your original power of attorney back and in the meantime inform them in writing you are cancelling it.

Not sure what you mean by company account - your bank account? I would leave this open so long as you have a company but only keep small amount in it.

Yes remember you. Tony is coming to visit me today as it happens! Starting Bulgarian lessons. We are running courses together.

Rachel

[TheTravelBug]

The deadline for re-registration has once again been extended to June 2011. But better to get done and then you do not need to worry about it.

[Duke]

A lot about RE-Registration, but what's the proceedure about starting from scratch..is it the same ?

[TheTravelBug]

No. If you set up a new company (2009 onwards) then no need for re-registration.