This semi-detached house in a cul-de-sac in Orpington, South London, is further proof of the chronic uselessness of Companies House.
It has been used as the registered office for 99 companies formed over just the past couple of weeks, and the woman living there, who did not want to give her name, says that she knows nothing about them.
“I’ve received a lot of letters, I didn’t count them,” she said, holding around a dozen brown envelopes.
“I’m going to send them back.”
As I’ve been highlighting, you can register a company using any office address and any names for the directors because Companies House won’t check, see here.
The companies registered to the semi in Orpington have been churned out using the same formula.
Each has a single director living in China, and the company names are a mix of the surname then first name of the supposed director, so Shijianan Limited has a director called Jianan Shi, Mengqingle Limited has a director called Qingle Meng, Wangyuhan Limited has a director called Yuhan Wang, and so on.
It may or may not be a coincidence that the Land Registry show that the Orpington property freehold is owned by a Wang Quanzhan and Jing Li.
The big question is, what is the motive for setting up dozens of limited companies at a fake registered office address?
First, having limited company status does confer some sort of credibitility on a business, or so people think until they become aware that Companies House carries out no verification checks on the information filed.
As for these particular companies, a clue may lie in the fact that they have given the same business code to Companies House showing they’ve been set up for mail order and internet sales. You can see how a Chinese-owned mail order firm might garner some consumer confidence in the UK by appearing to have a registered office here.
I do hope there won’t be any angry customers descending on this house in a few weeks because there’s been a problem with stuff they’ve bought online. Like the cul de sac, they're likely to find themselves at a deadend.
Dark money expert Graham Barrow (twitter handle @greybrow53) describes the mass of companies being set up with fake details as “a national scandal of epic proportions”.
“You need more proof of ID to get a library card than to set up a company,” he said.
Perhaps the new Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg will ensure that the promised Companies House reforms become a reality.
investigate@mirror.co.uk
