Legal Question in Business Law in Virginia
Church - foreign corporation registration
Can a nonprofit corporation which has the word "Church" in its legal name and which was incorporated in Delaware register and qualify to do business in Virginia as a foreign corporation?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Church Registration in Virginia
An interesting question, since Virginia does not allow religious corporations of any sort.
One way around this that I have used for clients has been to form an LLC in a state that allows them (such as Maryland) and then registering them as foreign LLCs in Virginia.
If you would like to discuss this matter further, please feel free to call me at (301) 570-8976.
Foreign Church corporation in VA
The answer is no, because a foreign corporationcan't be given rights in VA that a domesticVA corporatoion cannot have, and that includesthe right to operate a church. Brett Weiss' solution has worked - set up a foreign LLC andhave it obtain authority to do business in VA.However, in Brett's case the entity was calleda "temple," not a church, so it could haveslipped through. It would be interesting to try again with a corporation/LLC with "church"in the name, because it is an interesting theory to get around the state constitutional ban on church corporations.
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