Buying a ready-made company in the Czech Republic: important things to know

The offer of ready-made (or shelf) companies on Czech market is large. If you negotiate with some office to buy one, pay attention to following points, which could prevent you to buy a problematic company.

1) it’s better to negotiate about particular company with particular name, address and trade register number. Don’t let sell you ‘a company’, which name you will hear while signing the contract.

2) you could check the history of this company on public Trade register pages: https://or.justice.cz/ias/ui/rejstrik
There you could see:
– when the company has been established;
– how many owners did it change;
– under the link ‘Sbírka listin’ you could find the founding documents and all the documents about the changes.
3) it’s better to buy a company which shareholder is the office you are buying from. A ready-made company should ‘look fresh’. If it has some years of history including changes of shareholders – rather avoid buying it.

4) you ‘d better insist, that in the contract there is a paragraph with a guarantee, that:
– that the company has not been used for any business,
– that the company has no debts to former shareholders and to third sides,
– that the company has no obligations towards authorities;

5) the contract should be also translated in English.

6) if the company existed longer time than from October last year, the selling office should provide minimal accounting documents and the tax return documents.

7) if the company was registered for VAT, they should provide you VAT declaration for every month of its registration.

8) the founding capital of the company should be placed on a bank account. The seller should provide you the documentation and all the rights to the bank account of the company.

If you hold on these points by negotiations, it helps you to prevent cheating of the kind ‘not telling everything’ about the company to buy. To be absolutely sure, it’s better to come to the Czech Republic for two times and register company yourself, or to give the power of attorney to some office to register the company in your name.