BC Business Search | BC Company Summary | Partnership, Proprietorship & Operating Trade Name Searches

BC Business Search – British Columbia Company Summary Search

One type of BC Business Search is a BC Company Summary. A BC Company Summary is the equivalent of a BC company search or corporate search which is done when you wish to obtain information about a company incorporated in British Columbia. This type of search will not provide you with information about a BC sole proprietorship, BC partnership or as they are both sometimes called , a BC trade name search. In other provinces they are called corporate searches, company searches or corporate profile reports.

A BC Company Summary provides a record of the information on file in the BC government’s database for a company that is incorporated in British Columbia.

The information that you can obtain by obtaining a BC Company Summary for a BC company is as follows:

Registered office address, mailing address, delivery address and records office address
Date of Incorporation
Date the last annual report was filed
The names, mailing address and delivery address for each of the directors.
The name, position, mailing address and delivery address of each of the officers.
Copies of all Articles on File (these would only include those filings since incorporation (provided the company was incorporated after the transition to the new system otherwise you will need to obtain paper copies)

If a BC company does not file its annual report with the British Columbia government it will be dissolved. One way to determine if your company is up-to-date in its filings is to order a BC Company Summary. You can also confirm that all other information on file is current as well. It is essential that your company’s record be up-to-date. If the addresses are incorrect and the BC government has new policies that it wishes to inform you about and cannot reach you, your BC company could end up being in non-compliance with the government and subsequently be dissolved.

You will notice that you cannot find out the ownership of a BC company from obtaining a BC Company Summary or BC corporate search. This is considered confidential information in BC and you will not be able to find this out. Frequently though if you pull a search on a BC company and you see that there is only one director and officer, that person is usually the owner. You of course should never assume this.

You can order a BC Company Summary through a legal search house. These search houses are located across Canada and you can usually find them online. The summary is provided in pdf format and can be delivered by email. It usually only takes a few hours to get one of these reports depending on how busy the search house is with requests.

These reports are ordered frequently by solicitors, banks, other parties to contracts with a BC company, etc. and are usually ordered to determine if a company is in good standing. Therefore, if your company is not up-to-date with its filings this could create problems with your clients.

BC Business Search – BC Trade Name Search, Business Name Search or BC Sole Proprietorship Search

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Another type of BC Business Search that can be obtained is a search of a registered BC business name. This service provides you with information about a sole proprietorship including the name and address of the sole proprietor, the address of the business and the nature of business.

This type of search will also provide you with a search of a business name registered on behalf of a company registered in British Columbia. For instance, a BC company or a company incorporated elsewhere but registered to conduct business in BC, may register a business name other than its own corporate name. Information about these types of business names can be determined through a BC trade name search including the name of the company, its registered office address and the nature of business. It is important that you know the exact name before you order the search. If you have any concerns about that drop us a quick email saying that you wish to perform a search but want to check the names on file first to ensure you order a search on the proper name.

BC Business Search – BC Partnership Search

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A search of a British Columbia partnership will provide you with the names and addresses of all of the partners along with the business address of partnerships and the nature of business.