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Comment by daheza | Hacker News Reader

How are you setting up LLCs nowadays? I set one up through legalzoom and get charged an increasing amount each year (it increased $100) this year and I can't cancel / dissolve the charges via the UI. Even though I signed up online, I have to contact the state to dissolve the LLC then show legalzoom proof in order to cancel their yearly fee. Its pretty crazy.

Are there other better vendors for this kind of work out there?

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I form them myself, which takes about 5 minutes on the Secretary of State's website. The only fee to the state is a one time formation fee. This is true in a variety of states.

I got this advice to do so from (a) the aforementioned nonprofit consultant and (b) an actual attorney, who does serve as a registered agent, for no fee. He is glad to do so since in the very rare event of a lawsuit, he'll be the one representing us. However, you could also just be your own registered agent if you have an office where people regularly work.

Note that I am not going out of my way to conceal the identity of the nonprofit board members / members of the LLC.

Why do you need a "vendor" at all? Do the paperwork yourself and pay the $100 fee (or whatever it is in your chosen state), and Bob's yer uncle. At worst add in a one-time cost of $40 or so to buy a book like Nolo's LLC Handbook[1].

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Nolos-LLC-Handbook-Agreements-Instruc...

Because you don't want to be your own registered agent.

This is out of date advice, primarily given by registered agents who often aren't actual attorneys.

Not everyone wants to have their location publicly available for the world to see. If you can be served a lawsuit, people can "serve" you a bunch of other things too.

Fair enough. For my money, I wouldn't pay somebody else to do that, but I can see the appeal for some folks.

You might want to use a registered agent rather than blasting someone's home address into all kinds of public records, or using an attorney who starts the billing clock to receive spam. And when you go for the more reasonably priced registered agents, it feels like a ticking clock until they start to enshittify.

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