BUSINESS SALES AND PUCHASES

WHAT’S IN A (BUSINESS)  NAME?

You can carry on business without a registered business name only if you are using your own name- so for example for a sole trader (Gertrude Smith’s Garden Care) or a registered company (G.S Smith Pty Ltd). It is not ok to alter or add  ‘extra bits’ to a personal or company name to use as a business name without registering that business name formally with the Office of Fair Trading.   So, to lawfully use the name Gertie’s Garden Care, Harry first needed to have his solicitor ensure that the name was properly registered, and then transferred to him on sale of the business.
 

It is also important to ensure that any proposed business name is unlikely to infringe a trademark or confuse customers. It would probably not be a great idea to try registering  “Macca’s Burgers “  as a business name – that is unless you actually like the idea of having a battalion of lawyers descend on you from a great height with a view to both protecting their clients’ intellectual property, and re-arranging your bank balance detrimentally.

Picking the wrong name to register for a business, or failing to register a name when you should can severely impact your business. So, this is one area where you do need to dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s .