Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to prevent the fraudulent registration of companies using private residential addresses through Companies House.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 strengthened Companies House’s powers to query or reject inaccurate or suspicious addresses, enabling the Registrar to act swiftly and decisively against misuse of residential addresses.

Many fraudulent or misused registered office addresses have been removed and replaced with default addresses and companies without appropriate addresses are struck off, protecting those whose details were used without permission.

Companies House’s systems improve continuously to detect and prevent unauthorised address use. The Government is considering the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendation for increased powers to verify new and existing company addresses and will respond in November.