Mailing Address Needed - 5 key criteria

[Julian]

This should be simple but I just can't find anywhere that meets my criteria. Here are the key things that I'm looking for:

1) The address must not look like an obviously disguised PO box number. An address of the form "<My Company>, Unit/Suite 287, Something House, Some Street, London" looks to me to be so obviously just PO Box 287 renamed to be a "unit" or a "suite". I want to be able to just use an address of the form "<My Company>, Something House, Some Street, London". I suppose that if the Unit/Suite number was low, maybe under 20, then it might be OK. This criterion is the reason I am qualifying out my local Mail Boxes Etc.

2) The address must also be usable for the official Companies House registered address.

3) The price must be reasonable. A pay as you go pricing plan would be ideal since I anticipate fewer than 10 letters a month. Operations like my local Regus and another local business centre have been qualified out due to wanting over £50 a month just for a collection-only mailing address service. For me that's silly money for probably about 5 letters a month.

4) It has to be in the greater London area so that the place where my company is registered bears some relationship to the Business Link region and and other organisations that I would want or need to deal with.

Finally, a highly desirable criterion but one that I fear I might need to relax is:

5) As close to my home office as possible; this means in the South West London area (Richmond, Twickenham, Kingston, Hounslow, Putney sort of area). This is the reason why I am holding off on going with a Central London operation such as British Monomarks in the hope that I can find something similar locally. Personally when I see a small company with a Central London address I always think "that's a forwarding address" but maybe this is just because I'm too sensitised to this from having looked at so many of these services and most people wouldn't think twice about it. I would also prefer something local so that I can pop in and pick up mail and also so that, if/when I do move to real offices, it does look like a small move.

Can anyone offer something meeting the above criteria or suggest anyone that can? Believe me, I've looked and looked and I can't find anything that meets all 5 criteria.

- Julian

[fisicx]

Why can't you use your own address?

If the company is to be registered, why not just use your accountant's address.

[Julian]

Why can't you use your own address?

If the company is to be registered, why not just use your accountant's address.
A good question, I should have mentioned that in my original post.

My own (home) address is too obviously residential and conveys totally the wrong image for my company and my target market. Since I know that I need a general mailing address I think it would look better for the registered address to be the same one

- Julian

[adam]

Something is odd here.

If this business is to work and will "impress" with its address thwn what is £50? You might get it down to what, £30? So all this messing about for £20 a month?

Why not name your house "Business Towers" or something? what about those huge office blocks on business parks that are numbered 920 or 926 etc?

Perhaps if you said what you were doing we may see a reason for all this cloak and dagger stuff.

[fisicx]

And of course as a registered company you can always claim the £50 as a business expense. But I'd still use the accountants as your registered address.

[Julian]

Something is odd here.

If this business is to work and will "impress" with its address thwn what is £50? You might get it down to what, £30? So all this messing about for £20 a month?

Why not name your house "Business Towers" or something? what about those huge office blocks on business parks that are numbered 920 or 926 etc?

Perhaps if you said what you were doing we may see a reason for all this cloak and dagger stuff.
Nothing is odd but there is cloak and dagger stuff in that I can't tell you what the business is because the product is still under development, has not been announced, and I see no reason to give potential competitors any advanced warning.

All I'm doing is following a pretty basic rule of running a business; drive out costs where possible. Of course I'll pay the £600 a year if I have to but I had 5 minutes while I needed to wait for a backup to finish and I have a list of basic things I need to get set up between now and September so why on earth wouldn't I take the 5 minutes to see if I could find a more cost effective solution rather than twiddle my thumbs for the 5 minutes?

- Julian

[OldWelshGuy]

Look after the pennies, and the pounds take care of themselves :)

[nevets]

I have been looking for almost exactly the same thing in the SE london area. I currently use my accountants address for not much money per year, but I am changing accountants soon so I want a fixed address local to the working area that will remain constant no matter who the accountant is or where they are based. So far I am having the same problem of excessive quotes. Surely it must be possible to find a professional sounding address for sensible money.

Something is odd here.

If this business is to work and will "impress" with its address thwn what is £50? You might get it down to what, £30? So all this messing about for £20 a month?

Why not name your house "Business Towers" or something? what about those huge office blocks on business parks that are numbered 920 or 926 etc?

Perhaps if you said what you were doing we may see a reason for all this cloak and dagger stuff. I must say this came across as a positive, helpful and constructive comment.

I dont see anything odd. By the sound of it Julian is in the same situation as me...... working from a home office and not wanting to advertise the home address on the internet/letterheads etc. Personally I think throwing away £50 a month on an address when it could be found for sensible money is odd.

[BoilerBoy]

Like you I get a very low volume of mail, and my accountant is happy to receive it for me on that basis (as well as act as registered office), all free of charge (or at least incorporated into his normal fees).

Talk to your accountant, see if they offer the service and would be willing to do something similar? If you only get a handful of letters a month it shouldn't be much trouble for them, and it's in his best interests to see your business keep costs down and profits high in the early days.

[JGOffshore]

I used to own a company formation business and for a long time we did allow - for a charge - clients to use our address as their registered office and - for a higher charge - a regular mailing address.

However, we found that most of the people who used these services were rather "iffy" and we got fed up with dealing with bailiffs and irate creditors. Also, more recently the anti-money laundering regulations have made it much more of a problem which is why you are finding it difficult.

[Nick609]

I run a business centre, and we have a number of mail forwarding and mail collection customers.

The address of the business centre is not a PO Box cover, and being a Grade II Listing Building adds to the prestige.

Services starting from £10 per month meets the cost criteria.

However, the issue is with the area. We are located in Ipswich, so about 90 miles away from where you needed - although mail forwarding is always an option?

I'm not sure if I've made enough postings on here to post the URL, but you'll find Saracens House lurking somewhere around position 6-12 on google for Business Address or Virtual Business Address.

Nick