If you are thinking of changing your firm’s legal status, you will need to submit a New Authorisation application*.
Our Authorisation pages contain further information about How to apply for authorisation. You should ensure that you have all of the necessary information ready for us to assess before you submit your application.
When submitting an application for the new legal entity, you will need to sign a Deed Poll declaration. This requires your firm to deal with any complaints from existing customers in the same way that it would customers of your new legal entity. We have this requirement to prevent firms leaving behind their obligations to their customers by changing their legal entity. Before your application is approved, we will ask you to cancel the previous entity's permissions.
Customers
If you have any ongoing contractual agreements with your customers, you must contact them and agree either to amend their existing contracts or to agree new contracts to take into account the change in your firm’s legal entity.
Otherwise you should let your customers know about the change in the legal entity as and when you next deal with them.
*Depending on the legal structure of the previous entity and the new entity, you will need to submit either a New Authorisation application or a SUP 15 notification.
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Applicant |
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Sole trader |
Private limited company |
Public limited company |
Partnership |
Limited partnership |
Limited liability partnership |
Unincorporated association |
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Existing firm |
Sole trader |
- |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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Private limited company |
Yes |
- |
No * |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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Public limited company |
Yes |
No * |
- |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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Partnership |
No * |
Yes
|
Yes
|
- |
No * |
Yes |
Yes |
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Limited partnership |
Yes
|
Yes |
Yes |
No * |
- |
Yes |
Yes |
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Limited liability partnership |
Yes |
Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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- |
Yes |
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Unincorporated association |
No * |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
- |
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Yes: Submit a New Authorisation application.
No *: Notification only required (see SUP 15.3.8G).