QUESTION
Do I subject myself to personal liability when registering a trade name in AZ as an individual to open a bank account for community road maintenance?
Asked on Oct 28th, 2013 on Business Law - Arizona
More details to this question:
I am the recently designated road maintenance manager for our small community and would like to set up a bank account to deposit community residents checks. The residents want to make checks out to "xxxx xxx road maintenance fund, and the bank requires a trade name be registered. I am not a business, just a community resident managing the road maintenance account, therefore would have to identify myself as an individual on the trade name application. Does this create any personal liability for me?
1 ANSWER
I can see some circumstances where you would be exposing yourself, if not to liability, than at least to being sued, by registering individually, and I don't understand why you need to do so. Why would you be the registrant? The registrant should be the community. You would just be a signatory on the account. If the community of which you write is not a legal entity (for example, I live in an incorporated village, and live in an apartment building owned by a cooperative corporation, both of which are legal entities), then it would be safest to set up a legal entity. For example, community members could incorporate the "Community X Improvement Committee" as a not for profit corporation, and handle all dealings as that entity.
Answered on Oct 29th, 2013 at 12:31 PM