Is a service agent required for a Hungarian company (Kft)?

We have created a Hungarian company two years ago in order to purchase our property in Budapest. We have been told at the time that we needed a service agent to represent us in Hungary. They are charging us £700 per year to forward our mail. We are paying the accountant an extra £400 on top of this.

Is there anything more than forwarding mail and using their address to a service agent? Is this just another way to make money from foreigners? Or are we missing something and there are good legal reasons behind this?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Might be worth losing the Kft and transferring the property to yourself. Even if you have a stamp duty liability, it might work out cheaper given the amounts you are paying.

I'm not too clued in on how easy it might be to dissolve a Kft, anyone got specific details?

Dissolving a company costs as much as setting one up - around €1000.

£700 per year sounds a bit ridiculous to forward your mail. Is your lawyer charging this?

Budapest,

At the time of creating our Hungarian company our lawyer said that we need an accountant and a service agent. The company needs an address in Hungary and it should be the service agent address. We are paying £700 to that agent (not our lawyer) and now we understand that she does nothing else than forwarding our mail.

Can we just not change the address to our accountant since most of the mail is going to him anyway?

K. according to the hungarian regulation the owner of the company needs an address in hungary for formal letters, usualy it is a lawyer who is the delivery agent of the company and they charge 100-200 euro / year for this. 700 is too much.
the address of the company is not relevant for this issue since if the authorities are trying to send you (personaly) a letter they will send it to the delivery agent.
the company as an hunagrian entity will have the address regsitered whenever you want and you dont need a delivery agent for the company itself

Hi Lee-m,

Thank you for your reply. You sound very knowledgeable of the Hungarian regulation. Once more I feel the foreign investor or not getting the most honest advice! I have now convinced my accountant to be my service agent as well. He is charging me 100 Euros for this. I use to pay 1000 Euros !!!

K. good luck and I promised not to ask commission for the money you saved (-: