Form LLF-1, the West Virginia application for certificate of authority of an LLC

The statute has the application set forth the company name, its home state or country, the mailing address of its principal office, the name and address of each member with authority to sign, its initial designated office, its initial agent, its duration, whether it is manager-managed, whether members are liable for its debts, its purposes, and an email address for notices. The form is built from those eleven items and adds a county, a website line and a few questions for the state's own records.

If the home name is available in West Virginia, the form uses it. If not, the company checks the DBA name box and follows the special instructions. If the home-state name is not available in West Virginia, the company registers a forced DBA name that includes a required LLC term, and attaches a resolution adopting it; the name is not accepted without the resolution. A company that does business under any name other than its registered name must register that trade name with the Secretary of State.

This section wants a name and an address for whoever will receive a summons or complaint. The instructions allow an individual resident of the state, a domestic corporation, another limited liability company, or a foreign corporation or foreign company. Our firm can serve if you want a West Virginia agent.

An at-will company continues until it is voluntarily ended or administratively dissolved. A term company sets a period. The form lists the members of a member-managed company or the managers of a manager-managed one, with addresses, and rejects an application that leaves them out.

Describe what the company will do in West Virginia in a line or two. Filing the application alone does not qualify a company to do business in West Virginia, which also needs a business license from the Department of Tax and Revenue and any other license its work requires.

A veteran-owned company can have the registration fee waived by including a copy of Veterans Affairs Form DD214 with the application. The veteran must be honorably discharged or discharged under honorable conditions, and a publicly owned entity must be at least 51 percent owned by veterans.

The fee is $150. Add $15 for each certified copy. On paper, checks are payable to West Virginia Secretary of State, and file one original, and two if you want a filed-stamped copy returned to you.

A separate page of the form, the customer order request, goes in with the filing. It lets the filer choose standard service or one of four faster options, and it asks how the filed document should come back: held for pick-up, emailed, by specialty carrier or by mail.