Hello , how is your week coming...

I hope you are getting it all together and making progress?

Today, I will be sharing with you the 3 Things that you can't do with your Trade Name.

Before we get into what you can or cannot do with your trade name let's establish the difference between your company’s registered name and your trade name.

A registered business name is the legal or official name of the company as it is on the certificate of registration or incorporation of the company.

There is an actual difference between a Business registration certificate and a Certificate of incorporation”.

A certificate of business registration applies to businesses that are registered as an enterprise also known as business names or ventures and usually begins with a BN on the certificate.

A certificate of incorporation on the other hand applies to businesses that are registered as a corporation. 

That is, limited liability companies whether limited by shares or by guarantee, private or public companies, limited or unlimited.

The incorporation number usually starts with an RC e.g RC342458 and they can have any of these suffixes…Ltd, Unltd, Gtd, Plc.

Not-for-profit organizations also have a certificate of incorporation by virtue of their status as an incorporated trustee.

A trade name on the other hand is a name by which people know you which is not necessarily your registered name as already explained above.

Feel free to see a trading name as a nickname. The purpose of a trading name is to identify you and separate your business from that of the competition.

So basically, a trading name is usually trademarked while a legal name is registered or incorporated with the CAC depending on the structure of your business.

You can do a lot with your trade or brand name, but here are three (3) things that you can’t do with your trade name.

1. You can’t open a corporate account with your trade name.

You can only do that with your legal name (the name on your certificate).

2. You can’t enter into contracts or Agreements with your trade name same goes for an unregistered business name.

 The trade name or unregistered Company name is not a “legal person” in law.

3. You can’t use your trade or brand name alone on official documents of the company.

But You can creatively add the trade name in contracts especially in the description of the parties but that should come after the legal name has been clearly stated.

Please, note that a trading name may be the same as the registered name or they may be different, it all depends on what you want as a business owner.

So, there you have it.

I hope you learned something new today?

Talk to you soon!

To your #LegalSense