Company Car and Car Insuarance. Advice needed.

[maxmax12]

Hello everyone,
Went through the other threads and did not find this topic discussed before.
The situation is the following:
Recently I have formed LTD company in the UK.
I'm the Director of the company and my partner is the administrator. We do not have other employees working for company. This monday I'm buying Toyota Aygo (low emmision car) through the company and this will be the asset in my company. Its only me and my partner who is going to drive that car. I'm driving 99% of time (commuting + leisure), but my partner is going to drive the car for 1% of time and for leisure only.

Now I'm trying to organise car insuarance, went to moneysupermaket and confused..... and now I'm really confused. The issue is I have to confirm the following assumptions (of all the insuerers): I'm the leagal owner and the registered keeper of the car..

At this point I'm lost.... I assume If my company pays for the car from business account, the company is the owner of the car. On the other hand, the company belongs to me (all 100% of shares), as a result I'm the owner of the vehicle as well????

Is it possible for me to pay for the car from my company business account, but use my name (not my company name) as the legal owner and the registered keeper of the car????

As far as I understand, company car insuarance is supposed to be more expensive and thats why I do not want to use them.... unless I have to.

Your advice is highly appreciated

Many Thanks,

Maxim

[Manic]

As an aside you do realise the car will be a BIK and you will have to pay tax?

[wc2]

Lease the Car

[malvolio]

I you own the car you pay for it. If the company owns the car, the company pays for it. If you want to own the car and have the company pay for it, you will owe a lump of tax as a company car user.

Do all the sums and the research (details on the HMRC website plus a dozen others like What Car), then buy it yourself and charge business mileage to the company like any sensible person does.

Do not confuse you and YourCo in any way, that is dangerous and foolish.

Sad thing is, at the end of it all, you're driving an Aygo. Ho hum...

[morphman]

100% capital reduction for low emission cars in year 1 far outweighs the return on "business mileage" as long as most of your miles will be "business mileage".

The new 2008 rules make a company car an interesting option again.

You have to buy a new car with low emissions to take advantage of it though.

See www.comcar.co.uk for some good examples.

Only reason I'm not doing it myself is that I think in 5 years petrol will be dead or dying, and the second hand car market for petrol cars will die with it. So im leasing for now until the picture is clearer.

[ASB]

Maxmax,

Legal owner and registered keeper are different things. If the company buys it then the company owns it - though you can still be the registered keeper.

Problem then is who pays for the insurance. The company has to insure it, it has the insurable interest. If you find quotes and then speak to those companies that look attractive, see what they say. Find out the exact question asked - because it differs company to company.

[Dearnla]

Couldn't find the M5 on that list so will stick to buying my own.....

[IR35 Avoider]

I used to have a company car in the '90's, before tax changes made it no longer sensible to do so. I remember being sent away by the Post Office when I tried to renew road tax because of a problem caused by insurance documents being in the company name. Insuring as a company car was also more expensive.

The solution is to buy, register and insure it in your own name. Claim costs back from the company as expenses. No-one except you, your accountant and the tax-man need to know the company owns it.

[Comcar]

Be safe

If you don't disclose the correct ownership position to the insurers, you are unlikely to be covered in the event of an accident. It will take more work and money to find company car insurance but, as long as your company is profitable, the tax benefits of a sub 121gco2/km car should be worth it.