Partnership to Limited Company - Website ownership

[Andrew Glass]

Hi,

Today My brother and I decided to create a limited company.

The background:
My brother and I have coded and designed a website for a number of years now. We have done all this work ourselves.

We had setup (but done no trading through) a legal partnership through HMRC during this time.

The website domain and hosting are both registered under my personal details.
We have hosted email service which is also registered under my personal details.
We also have a phone service which is under my personal details.

The website design, code, etc was all done by ourselves so the ownership of this is ours as individuals and no third party was involved during this.

Everything to do with the website is connected to us as individuals.

The Question
We want to know how we legally transfer ownership of the website to the Limited Company.

In regards to transferring of the services (domain registration and hosting) what's required to remove myself from this as a person and make the company the owner of these?

How do we transfer ownership of the website code and design to the limited company?

In a nutshell I want to legally remove all ownership and responsibilities from us as individuals and give it to/transfer it to the company so there are no personal connections to me or my brother as individuals.

What is the correct method of doing this? Currently the website is not and has not made any income and trading hasnt started yet.

We just want to make sure the website is the property of the company and not us as individuals going forward.

Any advice welcome!

 

[prophet01]

Erm...Google perhaps.
Transfer ownership of IP to company

 

[Mark O’raw]

I’m no expert but in the past I’ve went into the admin section of say for example 123reg and changed the following:

1. name of user from your name to your company name
2. Change email to your company admin address
3. Change registered address to your company registered address
4. Mention it and record it in your company minutes

failing that the web domain help desks are quite good

 

[eteb3]

Have you not started trading at all?

 

[eteb3]

The website design, code, etc was all done by ourselves so the ownership of this is ours as individuals

I would think you own it jointly, as you have set yourselves up as a partnership. You didn't need to register with HMRC for that: whenever you set up business in common with a view of profit, you are partners whether you like it or not, and partnership property is ipso facto in joint ownership.

Have you started trading at all? Who are those contracts with if so?

To transfer ownership you can sell the website to the company, perhaps for a nominal sum. (You could transfer by deed for no value, but that's easier to cock up.) I think I've learned from @Scalloway that the usual thing would be to debit the price from your director's loan account (assuming you'll be a director) and the company can pay it back from later income.

But are you sure you want to? If the company goes bust your website goes with it (but I guess you know that). And transferring IP can be really messy - @obscure usually has useful things to say.

EDIT I see you're trying to divest yourself of all responsibility. In that case you could look at an indemnity by the company as the consideration given for the website. If it's really that important, I'd ask a lawyer not this forum.