Company dormant while abroad?

[wanstronian]

I'm planning to move abroad for at least a year, so I want to make my company dormant.

Although it looks quite straightforward to make my company dormant, there seems to be a real Catch-22:

1. A UK Limited Company needs to have a UK address, so I need to pay an accountant or some sort of agency to do that for me, and inform me of any important letters.
2. A dormant UK Company is NOT permitted to pay for services such as the one above (breaches "Trading in Goods or Services")
3. It's not clear whether a dormant UK company is allowed to, for example, pay bank charges - which would be necessary to pay for the UK Address management.

So it seems my only choice is to leave the company active but not trading, and paying for the services in points 1 and 2 above - which may also mean paying an accountant to do my annual tax submissions.

I hope I'm missing something - can anybody advise?

[hobnob]

One other option would be to close the company, then open a new company if/when you need it. However, that depends on how much money is in the company account - if you do MVL, you'd have to watch out for phoenix regulations.

[Dorkeaux]

Yes, it's weird.
Expenses like accountancy fees and such would probably be considered "significant".
But Companies House filing fees and the penalty for late annual accounts are not considered "significant".

Were it me, I'd pay from my personal account.
That would work, and you wouldn't incur the expense of MVL and dealing with phoenixing another company (if that's what you intend).