With our shelf companies, you have a choice of three options for taking over the share capital:
1. You take over the GmbH’s existing bank account at Commerzbank, which you can also use for subsequent operational payment transactions. In order for the account to be transferred to the new owners and for the credit balance to be available, the new management must legitimize itself to the bank. The legitimation check is to be carried out by the notary immediately after the notarization. The notary’s office will receive all the necessary documents and forms from the bank in advance. On the basis of these documents, the bank carries out a so-called KYC (Know Your Customer) check, which is required by the German Money Laundering Act. Commerzbank charges another fee for the final transfer, in particular for the effort involved here. This fee is currently EUR 250.00 for buyers from Germany and EUR 1,500.00 for buyers from abroad due to the significantly increased effort required by law.
The advantage of this option is that you do not have to open a new account and, as a customer of Commerzbank, you have access to a large branch network with personal support. However, due to the above described very high requirements of the Money Laundering Act for banks, you must expect a waiting period of one to two weeks here, during which the bank carries out all the necessary checks and during which you cannot dispose of the share capital.
2. If you already have a local bank or plan to transfer the share capital to a specific local bank anyway, there is the option of acquiring a shelf company whose share capital is in an account at Hörner Bank that cannot be taken over. In these cases, immediately after the notarization, the notary will give you an order cheque for the share capital. You can cash this at a bank of your choice, where a new account will be opened for the company you have acquired.
The advantage of this procedure is that with the cheque the registered capital can be transferred without prior examination according to the Money Laundering Act. In order to be able to work with the share capital, a new account must be opened at another bank. In the course of this opening, the obligatory verification of ownership and control is also carried out. However, the cheque can be carried out much faster at your local bank than at a bank with which you do not yet have a business relationship. This variant also offers the possibility of transferring the share capital to a foreign bank in an uncomplicated manner.
