Terms of Service

1. Who we are and who you are

Vaulex Group Ltd ("we", "us") is a company registered in England and Wales, number 17004770, with its registered office at Vaulex House, Woodland Place, Penarth CF64 2EX. We are supervised by HMRC for anti-money laundering purposes as a Trust or Company Service Provider under registration XLML00000218127, and we are an Authorised Corporate Service Provider registered with Companies House under reference AP021384.

"You" means the person or business placing the order. Where you order on behalf of a company, you confirm you are authorised to bind it, and you and that company are jointly responsible for the obligations in these terms.

A "working day" is Monday to Friday, except bank holidays in England and Wales. "Working hours" are 9am to 5.30pm UK time on a working day.

2. What we do – and what we do not do

We provide company formation, registered office and director's service address services, Virtual Office business addresses, mail and parcel handling, identity verification as an Authorised Corporate Service Provider, registration and filing services, and the related digital services described on our websites.

We do not provide nominee directors, nominee shareholders or trust services.

We are not accountants, solicitors or tax advisers, and nothing we provide is legal, tax, accountancy or investment advice. Where a service is described as "accountant-checked", a qualified accountant reviews the application for completeness and plausibility before it is submitted. That review is not advice to you, does not create a relationship between you and the reviewer, and does not relieve you of responsibility for the accuracy of what you have told us. If you need advice, appoint an adviser.

3. Our two websites

• vaulex.co.uk is where you buy a new limited company. It runs on a specialist company formation platform that we use under licence. Your order, payment and company formation are handled there.
• my.vaulex.co.uk is our client portal. It is where you buy a Virtual Office, move an existing company to us (a "switch") or buy identity verification, and it is where every customer receives their post, sends us documents and talks to us.

Both are services of Vaulex Group Ltd and these terms apply to both. If you form a company on vaulex.co.uk, we give you access to the portal so you can see your post.

4. Who we can act for

• We act for people who live in the UK and for businesses based in the UK.
• One exception – expats, for identity verification. If you live outside the UK, hold a current British passport and are, or will be, a director or person with significant control of a UK company, we can verify your identity for Companies House. Once we have verified you, that UK company may move its registered office to us on a switch package.
• We do not act for anyone else who lives outside the UK, or for businesses based outside the UK.
• Where an expat lives also matters. We cannot act for people living in some countries, and we carry out extra checks for others – see our AML & Identity Checks policy.
• If we receive an order we cannot accept under this section, we decline it and refund you in full to the card you paid with, unless the law requires us to do otherwise.

5. Your account and your information

• You must give us accurate, complete and current information, and tell us within 14 days if any of it changes – particularly where you live, your trading address, your contact details and the identity of your directors and people with significant control.
• If you move outside the UK, we review whether we can continue. A Virtual Office ends at the end of the month you have paid for; other services continue only where you meet our expat rule and pass our checks.
• You are responsible for keeping your login details secure and for everything done under your account. Never share your password or two-step verification codes.
• Give us your company's Companies House authentication code only through the secure field in your portal – never by email or chat.
• If information you give us turns out to be false or misleading, we may suspend or end your services immediately.

6. Identity verification and anti-money laundering

We cannot provide our services until identity and anti-money laundering checks are complete. These are legal obligations, not a matter of our preference. They apply to you and, depending on the service, to every director, person with significant control and beneficial owner. We may also ask about the business, the purpose of the service and, where the risk requires it, the source of funds.

We hold every first order until our checks are complete. Nothing is filed at Companies House and no address goes live before then.

We normally verify identity with nCino identity verification technology: you scan your identity document with your phone – the chip is read where it has one – and take a selfie. Where that cannot be completed, we check your documents ourselves and confirm your likeness on a live video call. We never rely on photographs alone.

We may refuse, suspend or end a service where we are required to do so by law, and we may be prohibited by law from telling you why. Full detail is in our AML & Identity Checks policy.

7. New company formation

• Every director and person with significant control must either give us their Companies House personal code or be verified by us, as Companies House requires.
• We file the application at Companies House for you, as your agent. The Companies House fee is shown separately and passed on at cost.
• Same-day formation depends on your order and our checks being complete by the cut-off time shown when you order, on a working day, and on Companies House processing the application that day. If it files on a later working day, our Cancellation & Refunds policy sets out what we refund.
• Company names, share structures and the other details on the application are your choice and your responsibility.

8. Moving an existing company to us (switch)

• We look your company up on the Companies House register before you pay, so you can see what we will change.
• After you pay, every director and person with significant control must be verified, and you must give us the company's Companies House authentication code through the portal.
• We then file the change of registered office, and a change of service address for each director who takes ours. Your address with us is live once Companies House accepts the change.
• Until then, your current registered office remains your responsibility, and you must not give our address to anyone as your registered office.

9. Addresses

• Registered office and director's service address. These come with our formation and switch packages. The address may be used only for the company registered with us, and the service address only for its directors named on the account.
• Virtual Office. A Virtual Office is a business address for your correspondence, with mail handling. It is not a registered office and not a director's service address, and it must not be filed at Companies House as either. If you want our address as your company's registered office, move the company to us on a switch package.
• One subscription covers one company or business. The address may not be used by any other company, person or trading name without its own subscription.
• You must not hold yourself out as occupying the premises or having staff there, and you may not receive visitors, clients or deliveries in person without a prior written arrangement.
• Your address is the named building we allocate you at Woodland Place – The Courtyard, The Annexe or The Exchange – each individually listed on the Royal Mail Postcode Address File. Occupancy in each building is strictly capped. We do not issue suite numbers, and you must not add a room, unit or suite number of your own.
• If your subscription ends, you must change your registered office and any service address at Companies House and update HMRC and anyone else who holds the address. We will normally file the change of registered office for you as part of leaving.
• Using our address after your subscription ends, or in a way your plan does not include, is a breach of these terms. We may apply to Companies House to have the address removed from the register, return post to sender and recover our reasonable costs.

10. Mail and parcels

• We log every item that arrives for you against your company, scan letters to your portal and email you when they arrive. Standard scanning is by the next working day; with 2-Hour Priority Scanning it is within two working hours of arrival. There is no per-item scanning charge on any plan. If an item on 2-Hour Priority Scanning is not in your portal within two working hours of its logged arrival for a reason within our control, that month's Priority fee is refunded.
• We hold originals for 90 days (or 30 days after your service ends, if sooner), then securely destroy them, unless you ask us to forward them first.
• We forward originals on request. For letters you pay Royal Mail postage at cost plus a flat £1.25 handling fee per item; parcels go by DHL at the flat price published on our website. You see the cost before anything is sent, it is charged to your saved card, and we send it on the next working day after you confirm.
• We forward only to an address we have checked. If you give us a new forwarding address, we verify it first. We will not forward to a country on our high-risk list without our compliance approval.
• We receive parcels up to 9kg and 380 x 320 x 160mm on every plan and hold them for collection or dispatch. Items above that size or weight are held while we tell you the same day and quote the cost of dispatch before anything is sent; items needing special handling, refrigeration or a signature we cannot give, or that cannot safely be held, will be refused or returned. We email you at least 14 days before we dispose of an uncollected parcel.
• Post addressed to people or businesses that are not on your account may be held while we ask you about it, or returned to the sender.
• We do not open, scan or forward anything we reasonably believe to be unlawful, hazardous, perishable or prohibited by our carriers. We may refuse or dispose of such items and, where required, report them.
• We are not a licensed postal operator and are not liable for the acts or omissions of Royal Mail or any courier.

11. Identity verification service

• As your Authorised Corporate Service Provider, we verify your identity to the Companies House identity verification standard and then tell Companies House. Companies House emails you your personal code. The code is yours, for every company you are involved with.
• As standard we use nCino: it reads the chip in your identity document and matches a live selfie to the document. Where that cannot be completed, we check your documents ourselves and confirm your likeness on a live video call – never from photographs alone.
• We complete standard verification within three working days, and fast track within 24 hours counted on working days only – weekends and bank holidays do not count – of you completing the phone check (or the video call, if we need one) and sending everything else we ask for. If we miss the fast-track timescale for a reason within our control, we refund the difference between the fast-track and standard price.
• We cannot guarantee that a verification will succeed. That depends on your documents and the checks. If it does not, we tell you what else we need, where we are allowed to.
• Where we have told you a verification fee will be credited against a plan, we apply the credit as described when you order.

12. Prices, payment and renewal

• Prices are shown on our websites and are the prices you pay. Statutory fees, such as the Companies House incorporation fee, are shown separately and passed on at cost.
• Payment is by card, taken by our payment processor, Stripe. Card details never reach our servers. Refunds only ever go back to the card that paid.
• We do not accept cash or bank transfers, or payment from anyone other than you or the business you are ordering for.
• Subscriptions are monthly and rolling unless stated otherwise, and are paid in advance. Where we offer a yearly option, you pay twelve months in advance at the yearly price shown, which is ten months at the monthly price; the subscription renews yearly at the same price unless you cancel; and if you cancel part-way through a year we refund the unused full months and charge the months you used at the monthly price. The first payment for some services includes a one-off setup charge, shown before you pay – a Virtual Office's first payment, for example, covers setup and the first month.
• We keep your card on file with Stripe to take your monthly or yearly renewals and any charges you approve, such as forwarding postage.
• Your renewal price is the price you signed up at. We will not increase the price of your existing subscription during its life except where a statutory fee changes, in which case we pass on that change only, or where you change plan.
• Vaulex Group Ltd is not currently registered for VAT. No VAT is added to our prices. If we become VAT registered we will tell you at least 30 days in advance, and you may cancel without penalty before any change takes effect.
• If a payment fails we will tell you and may suspend services after a reasonable period. We do not charge late payment penalties to consumers.

13. Chargebacks

If something is wrong, please tell us before you contact your bank – we would much rather put it right or refund you. Once you raise a chargeback, the money is dealt with through the bank's process and we cannot refund it separately. We may suspend the service while a chargeback is open, and where a chargeback is raised on a service we have already delivered, we may end the service.

14. Support and our AI assistant

• We talk to you by email and through your portal. Our messages are signed "Vaulex Group Support".
• Some replies may be written by our AI assistant, which signs its messages "Vaulex Group Support AI". It can answer questions, explain next steps and ask for missing information. It does not make decisions about identity checks, accepting or refusing you, refunds, complaints or your account – a person does. You can ask for a person at any time.
• Where the portal offers an AI tool, such as explaining a letter, it only runs when you ask it to. Its output is general information, not advice.

15. Our service commitments

The commitments published on our website as the Vaulex Group Guarantee form part of these terms. In summary: if Companies House rejects an application we prepared, we refund it and refile at our cost; your renewal price does not change; if we miss a filing deadline we have told you in writing that we are tracking, we pay the resulting Companies House late filing penalty; and you may cancel at any time without notice or exit fee.

These commitments are subject to you having given us complete and accurate information on time, and do not apply where the cause is outside our control, including a change in law, an error in information you supplied, or a failure by Companies House, HMRC or a postal operator. Our liability under the deadline commitment is limited to the penalty actually incurred.

16. Turnaround times

Formation and filing timescales quoted on our websites depend on Companies House and HMRC and are estimates, not guarantees, except where these terms or our website state a timescale as a commitment.

17. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

Subject to that, our total liability to you in connection with a service is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us for that service in the twelve months before the claim, or £1,000. We are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business or loss of goodwill, or for any loss that was not reasonably foreseeable when you placed your order.

18. Starting straight away

When you order, we ask you to confirm that you want us to start straight away. Without that we could not begin during your 14-day cancellation period. What it means for your right to cancel – including when that right ends – is set out in our Cancellation & Refunds policy.

19. Ending the agreement

• You may cancel at any time from your portal – choose Cancel a service, at the foot of every page or under Requests › New request – or by telling us. See our Cancellation & Refunds policy for what happens next and for your statutory rights.
• We may end the agreement immediately if you seriously breach these terms, if we are required to by law or by our supervisor, if you use an address for a purpose your plan does not include, or if you behave abusively towards our staff.
• Sections that by their nature should survive termination will do so, including liability, confidentiality and record keeping.

20. Records

The law requires us to keep identity and anti-money laundering records after our relationship ends: until five years after the relationship ends, or seven years from the date of an identity check for Companies House, whichever is later. This overrides any request to delete that data. See our Privacy Policy.

21. Policies that form part of these terms

The following policies form part of this agreement. Where a policy conflicts with these terms, these terms take precedence.

• AML & Identity Checks – who we can act for, the checks we carry out and why.
• Acceptable Use – what you may and may not do with a Vaulex Group address, account and mailbox.
• Fair Usage Policy – what normal use looks like across our address, mail, web and support services.
• Cancellation & Refunds – how to cancel and what you get back.
• Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Data Processing Agreement – what we do with your information.
• Complaints Procedure – how to complain and how fast we respond.

Where your use falls outside the Fair Usage Policy we will contact you first and offer the right service before taking any other step. We do not apply retrospective charges for anything we have already handled.

22. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. If a change materially affects you we will give you at least 30 days' notice by email, and you may cancel without penalty before it takes effect. The current version is always on this page with its version number and date.

23. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer living in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also bring proceedings in your local courts. Before going to court, please use our Complaints Procedure – we would much rather fix it.

24. Contact

Email hello@vaulex.co.uk, message us from your portal, or write to Vaulex Group Ltd, Vaulex House, Woodland Place, Penarth CF64 2EX. For complaints, data protection requests and anything about identity checks, email compliance@vaulex.co.uk.