company and trading names

[amkh4n]

I am curently a sole trader trading under the name amk associates. I am thinking of going LTD. The name which i am currently using as a sole trader business has allready been taken up by another ltd company.

My query is this: once i have registred my unique company name i.e amka LTD, can i continue to use my current sole trader name which is amk associates as a trading name?

hope that does'nt sound too confusing

[Bern Barber]

There is nothing to stop a company trading under a different name than its registered company name so in principle there is no reason why not. My only word of caution would be to make sure that you are not infringing another business's trade mark now that you know there is another company with the same name. If you are using the same name, whether or not you register as a limited company, you may be infringing their trade mark rights (or equally they could be infringing yours). Partly this would depend on whether you are trading the same types of goods or services as each other. You can check what type of business they operate by looking at their entry on the Companies House website. You can also run a trade mark search via the Patent Office website.

[mahutchinson]

I would not rely on Companies House codes to ascertain the business as you can pretty much choose any code you like including very vague ones. Amka has also been taken so it's back to the drawing board I'm afraid. Once you have chosen a company name that's available I am not clear why you need to use the trading name anyway - it will surely be redundant ?