Hey, all. A friend of mine had an LLC for his independant film company, and as I’m looking to possibly form an LLC for my own film, which I’m shooting now, it was discussed that I may go under his. However, I know he has not done any upkeep regarding his LLC in a while (at least two years, I’m going to guess)…no taxes filed or minutes submitted, anything like that.
Anyway, I’m not even sure if his LLC is still valid or not, if it’s even recognized as an entity by the government. Does anyone know how we might go about checking to find out if the LLC is still valid, or if it’s expired?
Wow…how obvious is it that all this stuff is comletely new to me? 
Thanks! Freewill39.
I’d suggest that the first step would be to find out where it was incorporated and then check with that jurisdiction’s regulator of companies.
Is the company out of New York? Try the Department of State Web site search.
If not, Google “[the state] secretary of state” for other states.
Every state’s Secretary of State website that I can think of has a search function to search for corporate records, although some charge a fee to performe the search.
IANAL, I am not your lawyer, and the following should not be construed as legal advice:
But, you should consult an attorney before attempting to use your friend’s LLC. You could be exposing yourself to liability that isn’t yours to begin with.
To form your own LLC, once again, you should consult an attorney or a paralegal. Depending on the state, some of the record keeping is a pain, and it is not something you can let slide if you want to keep your limited liability protection.