Most of our clients are small business owners operating out of their homes. Garage space gets turned into warehouse space, kitchens become manufacturing facilities, living rooms get turned into assembly lines, and home offices become financial empires.
While some of our clients use our office building as their business address, many small business owners use their home address.
We get it, using your home address as a business address can make sense. It’s cheaper, easy to setup, and it’s logistically simple. But, while we are 100% behind the idea of working from home, when it comes to using your home as a business address, there are potential consequences and privacy concerns to take into account.
Legal & Lability Concerns
Using your home address as your business address can open you up to serious liability issues. When a sole proprietorship gets sued, their personal assets are tied to their business. To protect themselves, they can open a limited liability company – which adds a corporate veil to protect personal assets from business liabilities and debts.
The purpose of an LLC is to protect your personal assets in case your company gets sued. However, in order for this to work effectively, you need to make sure that your personal debts and activities stay separate to those of your business – especially your business address. If you share the same address as that of your business, you could “pierce the corporate veil” which would make you liable for your business debts and obligations since there is no separation between your business and personal activities.
Zoning Restrictions, Leasing Restrictions, and HOA Rules
Depending on where you live, municipalities may have particular restrictions in place that prevent you from operating a business out of your home. It would be prudent to contact your city’s code enforcement officers to see if your company would violate any of their zoning laws.
If you live in an apartment or a condo with strict HOA rules, your contract may prevent you from having a business operating out of your home or unit. Typically, if you offer professional services with no foot traffic, your business may go unnoticed, but if your business disturbs the peace of other residents, you may run into issues that could shut down your business.
Contact the appropriate parties and inquire about your intentions to see if your company is allowed within their rules and regulations, if it’s not, it would be smart to look for virtual office options or physical office space to house your business operations.
Privacy Concerns
If you are using your home address as your business address, all records about your company are open to the public. When you register a domain name for your business, this information is readily available to anyone who searches for the domain name address.
If a client becomes upset with your service, a quick Google search may give them enough information to target and damage your personal property. Having a home address as your business address is dangerous and puts your family at risk.
Professional Business Image
There’s no question, we judge a business by their location. Even if you don’t have the need for a corporate building to meet clients, a professional address gives you the ability to list your corporate headquarters for as low as $59 a month.
When a prospective client searches for your name online, Google gives them the ability to see exactly where your business is located. If your business is based out of a home, it may send the wrong signals to your clients: Lack of resources, small to non-existent team, unreliable business hours, etc.
We do business with many entrepreneurs from all walks of life – from construction companies to graphic design and professional services – all of them use our building as a corporate representation of their company. It helps prospective clients take them seriously – which increases sales and helps them close contracts.
Stable Address for the Future
If your business shares a home address, when you move, the company’s address needs to follow. Some states require you to file paperwork to stay in compliance. But even if that’s not the case, if you are receiving checks or products, this means having to call your clients and vendors to alert them of a new change of address. Then you have to make sure that you follow through and verify your checks and products don’t get lost in the mail.
Moving a business is a logistical nightmare.
To avoid this, it is prudent to have a mailing address setup that can remain stationary while you and your business grow into a permanent location.
Marketing Potential
A known technique used by large companies was to trick Google into listing them on a map by renting a P.O. Box in multiple cities across the U.S. It didn’t work forever though; Google picked up on the practice and started to delisting them from the map.
Then the businesses started to buy UPS Boxes because they had a physical address and a “suite-box” number. In some cities, Google has started to de-list those companies as well.
We recommend that you use a Virtual Office service with an actual receptionist or team on-site to handle your correspondence and represent your business.
How to get a business address
Getting a business address is not difficult or expensive, you can usually find an office building that rents out virtual office space – an address + phone number, individually or as a package.
PrideGroupCo offers Virtual Office services to business owners who want to establish a presence in North Texas. Conveniently located within 15 minutes of DFW Airport, our professional building can give you corporate headquarters and a big business impression for as low as $59 per month.
