Every corporation, LLC, or limited partnership is required to have a registered agent, sometimes called a resident agent, to collect important legal documents for the business. This includes a service of process in the case of a lawsuit. Many small business owners opt to be their own registered agent, but this can lead to some big problems if they are actually required to receive notice of a lawsuit.
Commonly, people use their home address as the official registered agent address, and if they are not home when delivery of the legal document is attempted, they may not receive notice. Unfortunately, the courts don’t care about a person’s family vacation. Some states even require the registered agent to be open from eight to five, so a business owner who leaves their house during those hours might never get notice and be in violation of the law. Also worth considering is that a business owner only has 30 days to file a typed response with the court. If they fail to respond, a default judgement could be rendered against them, meaning they automatically lose the case.
That’s where registered agent service provides coverage. Corporate attorney Garrett Sutton, founded his company, Corporate Direct, to help business owners protect their livelihoods through incorporation and registered agent services.
“We want to make sure every business owner has the opportunity to protect himself from frivolous lawsuits,” Sutton says. “People lose these cases just because of overlooked details like a registered agent. When I founded Corporate Direct, I knew that would be one of our top priorities.”
Corporate Direct believes in offering a quality service and often speaks out against discount or poor quality registered agents, that can sometimes be worse than not having one at all.
“You need to make sure your registered agent is going to notify you as soon as possible of any lawsuit,” Sutton says. “This isn’t the area you should be bargain shopping. When it comes to legal processes and lawsuits, you don’t want to mess around.”
Corporate Direct currently operates registered agent services in all 50 states, allowing business owners from anywhere in the U.S. to receive quick notice of important legal documents for any state they do business or incorporate in.