What is the simplest way for citizen of EU member state to create and manage UK Ltd company without ever being to UK or owning anything else there (or renting physical office)?
I have created two UK limited within a 10 year interval without putting my feet there. I recommend you not to do it alone but find a local accountant in UK + an accountant in your country who knows a bit about the UK + your country rules. It is extremely easy to create a UK company, but this creates both obligations in UK and in your country of origin. For example, in Germany, if you are the director of a UK limited, you cannot get "family" health insurance, so you need to have another job or be employed by your UK limited or go private for your health insurance.
So, take the time to see how it affects your situation in your home country.
Note: It will cost you money in all the cases, it is not something you do "just for fun" or you are going to have problems. Setting up a business is work and must be prepared thoroughly.
I'm a Greek citizen with a UK company, I created it in ten minutes on companiesmadesimple.com, who also provide mail forwarding services, if I recall correctly. The biggest pain is the accounting, but FreeAgent (the app referred from the article) sounds good, and I guess 300 GBP a year isn't too much for it.
I don't know anything about Greece, but speaking of my country of origin (Czech Republic) is quite a big problem to set up credit card payments, not speaking about much bigger administrative burden and costly process of setting up company.
As zerostar07 said, the bureaucracy alone makes it a nonstarter. In the UK I get my personal HMRC contact, whereas in Greece you have to get up at 7 am and only hope you will get whatever you want done that day.
Also, Greece doesn't generally encourage entrepreneurship that much. For example, I can't email an invoice, I have to actually mail the actual physical copy, which I have to write by hand, because I have a book of invoices stamped by the Eforia (the Greek revenue service).
Plus, setting up the UK company took 15 minutes and as many pounds, whereas I have no idea how much it costs in Greece. Friends who've done it told me to stay away.
The bureaucracy and costs make it a bad choice when your clients are not in the country. The tax law changed at least 3 times (I stopped counting) last year.
For now, yes. But if Greece leaves the Euro in order to devalue her debt (considered by many as inevitable), the contracts of Greek companies would likely be forcefully redenominated to "New Drachmars".
Of course, no one knows how this will play out, but I think it would be very hard for anyone to touch a UK limited company's contracts and sterling holdings, regardless of who it's owner is.
They provide registration, a UK registered office address and mail forwarding to your address outside the UK. Each of the services costs extra and I'd estimate the overhead is around 300 Euros a year.
Whether you can own a UK company with a foreign address I don't know.
I do know many virtual offices can be your registered address. These tend to be companies that receive your mail/phone calls and forward them on to you or let you rent desks or offices for meetings in town/city centres.
As an individual you can't get a UK bank account unless you can prove you have a UK physical address. Maybe there is a way round but I doubt the restrictions are any less rigorous for businesses.
So, take the time to see how it affects your situation in your home country.
Note: It will cost you money in all the cases, it is not something you do "just for fun" or you are going to have problems. Setting up a business is work and must be prepared thoroughly.