Minute Book Rescue

Empty or missing minute book? Rebuilt for $299 flat, then kept current

If your BC company was incorporated online — through BC Registries, the old Corporate Online, or Ownr — you probably received a certificate and a notice of articles and nothing else. The Business Corporations Act expects a good deal more to be sitting at your records office. Minute Book Rescue rebuilds it for $299 flat, after a free health check that tells you exactly what is missing.

Start with a free health check Email us instead

No payment up front. You get the health check first and decide from there.

What has to be in a BC minute book

Section 42 of the Act lists the records every BC company must keep at its records office. In plain words:

Why online incorporations end up with nothing

The registry issues the certificate and the notice of articles. Everything else is created by whoever organizes the company after incorporation — the consents, the first resolutions, the actual issuance of shares, the registers. When a lawyer incorporates a company, that is the binder they hand you. When you incorporate through BC Registries, Corporate Online or Ownr, nobody does it, and the "minute book" is two PDFs in an email. Most owners find out when a bank, a buyer or the CRA says send us your minute book.

Shares that were never issued are the common problem. The notice of articles says the company is authorized to issue shares; it does not say anyone holds any. Without the incorporation agreement, a resolution and a register, your ownership rests on an assumption — awkward in a sale, a loan, or a dispute.

What Rescue includes

What it does not include

Minute Book Rescue

Free health check first. Then the rebuild, flat, followed by a plan that keeps it current from $249/yr.

$299 flat

+ tax · then a plan from $249/yr

How it works

  1. Free health checkTell us the company name. We look it up on the registry and ask what you have on file. A person replies within one business day with a plain list of what exists, what is missing, and whether any of it is legal work rather than records work.
  2. You send the incorporation documentsUpload what you have in the portal: certificate, notice of articles, articles, incorporation agreement. If you only have the first two, say so — that is the normal case.
  3. We rebuild the bookDocuments are typically ready for your signature within two weeks of receiving your incorporation documents. You review and sign in the portal; nothing is final until you do.
  4. Kept current from hereMinuted becomes your registered & records office from $249/yr: annual report filed, transparency register maintained, portal always up to date. Switching is free and the $21.50 change-of-office fee is billed at cost.

Then, a plan that keeps it that way

Records Office

$249/yr + tax

Everything the law requires, set up and kept.

  • Registered & records office address
  • Annual report prepared & filed every year, deadline tracked
  • Opening minute book prepared (new companies)
  • Transparency register prepared & kept current
  • Digital minute book portal
  • Unlimited scanning of letter mail
Start with the health check

Full Compliance

$399/yr + tax

Your yearly governance paperwork, done for you.

  • Everything in Records Office
  • Annual consent resolutions in lieu of AGM
  • 2 register updates & 2 certified copies a year
  • 1 dividend resolution a year
Choose Full Compliance

Prices in CAD plus tax. Government fees at cost: BC annual report $43.39/yr; change of registered & records office $21.50 one-time. A minute book held by a law firm or Ownr is imported free — we'll contact them if you can't download it.

Common questions

My law firm has a binder. Do I still need Rescue?

Probably not. If a lawyer organized the company, the binder usually holds everything s.42 requires. Switch to Minuted and we import it free — no transfer fee — and the health check will flag anything that has lapsed since, like an out-of-date register or a missing transparency register.

What do you need from me?

The company name to start. Then the documents you received at incorporation — certificate, notice of articles, and the articles and incorporation agreement if you have them. Directors and addresses we read from the registry; we won't ask you to retype anything the registry already knows.

What if something really can't be reconstructed?

We say so in writing. A record that never existed can be created now with today's date and an honest recital of what happened; it cannot be backdated. Where the facts are contested or the answer needs a lawyer's opinion, that is quoted separately and you decide whether to proceed.

Is the transparency register public?

Not under the Act currently in force — it is kept at the records office and shown to specified authorities on request. BC has passed, but not yet brought into force, an amendment that would make some of it public. We'll tell clients if and when that changes.

Also see

BC annual report filing Federal corporations in BC Leaving BC or Canada Company restoration Read: the empty minute book

Find out what's missing — free

Send us the company name. A person replies within one business day with what you have, what you don't, and what it would take to fix.

Start with a free health check