Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Whether an intity is incorporated or not.

The KnowX web site has a corporate search engine: http://www.knowx.com/corp/search.jsp?name=

Re: Whether an intity is incorporated or not.

Corporations qualified to do business in California must register with the California Secretary of State. They have a search engine on their website and you can go to www.ss.ca.gov to conduct a free search there. You can call me if you need further assistance.

Re: Whether an intity is incorporated or not.

Copy and paste the following URL address/link (Secretary of State of California website) into your browser:

http://kepler.ss.ca.gov/list.html

and input the name of the entity into the boxes. Try both for corporations and LLCs

I hope this helps

Re: Whether an intity is incorporated or not.

Often it's as easy as using a search engine or the Secretary of States' Web sites. Sometimes, it's tough or downright impossible.

The reasons include that corporations and unincorporated entities may have the same name or very similar names, be incorporated in different states or even foreign countries, and/or may or may not be registered to do business in another given state, such as California.

In pursuing a stock-sale scam for a client, I had a great deal of difficulty locating any record of the apparently-phony company that issued the stock. I finally located it by searching Secretary of State records in dozens of states, not by company name, but by the last names of the corporate officers who signed the supposed stock certificates. The actual name of the company in the state where it was founded was different than that used on its stock and its promotional material, and for most of its existence it was an LLC and not a corporation!