Selecting a Registered Agent

This is a tricky bit, unless you’ve got a recommendation for a Registered Agent.

As the State of Delaware warns:

Registered Agents are not regulated by the State of Delaware. The legal requirements to be a Registered Agent in Delaware are to maintain a street address and office located in Delaware and be open during normal business hours for the purpose of accepting service of process. Consumers are encouraged to exercise due diligence in researching the Registered Agent prior to selecting them for representation.

It’s a good idea to check the prospective Agent’s background with the Better Business Bureau, as well as make sure that you can actually locate the Agent in the State of Delaware’s official list of Delaware Registered Agents. If the Agent’s company name is not listed with the state, they’re likely just a reseller for some official Agent, in which case I’d move on. (If you can’t locate the company name on the Agent’s website at all, that’s not an encouraging sign either.)

Another tool you can use to check up on an Agent is the Whois Source, which will let you see (in most cases) the registrant information for the Agent’s website domain, as well as the date when the domain was first registered and when it will expire. If the Agent’s domain name is about to expire in a month or two, that indicates either technical ineptitude (which is not a crime) or a hit-and-run operation, so buyer beware.

Many Agents still handle LLC registrations by having you fax them a printed form; in my opinion that’s fine, as technical e-business competence probably isn’t the most important criterion in choosing an agent for most people. Some more modern Agents do offer online registration and payment (all offer credit card payment, some also other methods such as wire transfer and PayPal), in which case you should make sure their shopping cart or payment gateway is protected through SSL encryption before entering your personal information and credit card details.

Note that you can change your Registered Agent later, though it will incur a filing fee with the state.