1 Year Cliff 4 Year Vest

So, I understand what this is and what it means… but what I am a little flaky about is how this works with cofounders. For example: to incorporate a business in the UK, you have to create the initial shares and assign who they belong to. So we have that. But a founders agreement will include a 1 year cliff 4 year vest, so we don’t get shares until after year 1. But we already have the shares, because we needed to set up the company legally. So which is it, do we have the shares or don’t we have the shares. And further to that, if we get an investor, do their shares vest? If not, are they the only one with shares if we have a cliff? Confused 😂