Stranger registered company to my house

[Whyhasthishappened]

A letter arrived at my house today, addressed to someone I've never heard of, with a company name that means nothing to me, at my address. I opened it* and it was from a website company, saying basically "congratulations on registering your company, why not set up your website with us?". I assume this website company uses Companies House data to market to new business owners.

We own the property and have lived here for seven years, and the previous owner lived there for about the same length of time (it's not her name on the letter). I've occasionally seen the name of prior owners/occupiers on paperwork, and I don't remember any of them being the same as this new name.

I've googled the name and the company name, and nothing meaningful has come up.

How has this happened? Could this be a simple error (but how?), or is something fishy going on?

I'm worried this might affect our credit score and we are planning to apply for a mortgage in the coming months!

.* Please don't start with telling me it's against the law to do so, afaik it's only against the law to stop someone receiving their post, and if they will use my address I can't see what else I could sensibly do. I'm not going to martyr myself and risk my credit score.

I can't believe how easy it seems to be for scammers. Selling someone's house, wtf!! When I reported it just now on the Action Fraud website, there was a blurb saying that identity theft per se is not a crime, only when the fraud has taken place. Why on earth isn't it a crime, surely it would only be done for illicit purposes? Grr, feeling a bit helpless. Will ring Companies House first thing after school run and seek assurances that they will not give my info to the bloody scammers! So sorry for those of you who have been victims of this kind of thing.

Blimey OP
I've just looked at that page
I wonder if that's always been the case
No wonder scams are exploding.

Hi @QuidditchThroughtheAges , thank you for the warning. I've just signed up to the Land Registry website and while I can search for properties and have the option to order documentation, I can't see an option to register for notifications regarding my property. I will ring them in the morning once I've rung Companies House, but wondered if happened to know?

Hi @Whyhasthishappened , there’s a link to the property alert service (Land Registry) on this page:
www.gov.uk/protect-land-property-from-fraud

Thank you thank you thank you!!!

@Whyhasthishappened this link should work propertyalert.landregistry.gov.uk

It's awful OP! I'm signing up for the Anti Fraud restriction on the property title (£40). I already have the alert but want to cover all bases as someone has registered their VAT to my address & am very suspicious. I've reported it to HMRC 2 months ago & many times since, who couldn't give a sh*t and are lazy & useless as they're still registered at my address. Also reported to Action fraud but never heard back. One of the more helpful people at hmrc said there has been a spate of this recently.

On the grounds that it's exactly what Companies House tells you to do in this situation.

Link here.

OP - good luck with it all, how stressful.

Thanks all. I rang Companies House this morning and the lady I spoke to advised me to send an email explaining the situation and giving my Action Fraud reference number, and Companies House will "sort it all out". I asked her whether there was a risk that my details could be sent to the fake company, and she advised me to ask that question in the email, but told me that they did not hold contact details for companies other than postal address. Have emailed, hopefully will get a response in next couple of days.

In the meantime I'm going to put an anti-fraud restriction on the property, as kindly advised by a few of you.

The thing that strikes me is that a fraudster won't use details legitimately
so who checks that you've put that restriction on your address?

interesting that it's free if you don't live at the property but you have to pay £40 if you do live there.

I rang HM Land Registry today and spoke to a really nice helpful lady. She actually checked mine and dds properties for me & said nothing untowards going on. She said fraudsters usually target unmortgaged or empty properties or overseas owners. If a restriction is put, on it can take the owner a while and several hundred pounds through a solicitor to remove it when selling. It will be very hard for a scammer to do any conveyancing as a solicitor would be required to issue certificates that the restriction is removed. Unless said scammers can find a shonky solicitor. At least it will make this fraud alot harder Hope this helps @Whyhasthishappened

Have you checked on Companies House whether someone other than the woman director is a PSC?

If you don't receive a letter addressed to the woman director informing her she has been appointed a director of Dodgy Co Limited, that means she's used another address for correspondence which won't be publicly visible.

Thank you, that is helpful and I'm glad all was well with yours and DDs.
I don't want to make it harder to sell (which we are planning to do soon), so I may ring up too and hopefully speak to the same helpful lady! The property is mortgage-free so I do have a sick feeling our address was targeted specifically. Though it could be coincidence. Certainly makes me feel more vulnerable.

She's the only director listed and she has given our address as her own. Thanks for alerting me to the possibility of a hidden address, if Companies House don't reassure me on this point I will ask them again specifically.

Thanks Cherry that's really useful info

Everything feels rife with corruption at the mo....it struck me that £40 charge for homeowners actually living there, to "protect" their property, is a great way to make money out of us. Yet if you don't live there, it's free. Hmm.

The vicar story is weird. No one checked photo ID of the owner at any stage? Not saying it didn't happen, but these things tend to happen when absolutely everyone involved is dodgy - so a check by a legit org is probably not likely to happen.

I listened to a scary story on Radio 4 last year. Basically someone had several bogus businesses listed to addresses where no one lived. They had (fraudulently) created a Power of Attorney and was selling a women’s property without her knowledge or consent! They had somehow got her name and knew the address and that seemed to be enough. It described in detailed how powerful a PoA is but how easily it can be defrauded as the checks in place are woefully inadequate. The sale was only stopped at the 11th hour by an experienced conveyancing solicitor who was suspicious when they asked a few questions on the PoA (that they didn’t need to and someone else would have just let it though). I was terrified listening to it and stories like this just make you realise how easy fraud is.

I hope you get this resolved OP. Good to have posted to make people away of the scam.

This happened to us. We only realised when we got a tax bill for this company registered to us.

I suspect they keep changing their company address so HMRC never catch up with them.

@Whyhasthishappened Hopefully you can sell before any property fraud instigated and you have the alert in place. Yes, probably worth ringing hm Land Registry & telling them you've been a fraud victim & worried about your property & see if they can help. At least you'll be forewarned for your next potential property. It's awful the lengths these scammers go to. Very worrying & all the grief and angst you have to go through, hours spent on phone calls etc & sometimes useless staff but not always! Not sure if it was mentioned before but worth signing up with Credit Expert fraud alerts. It's free for a month then £14.99 pm thereafter. They have a fraud team to help as well.

I think I saw something on the BBC about this a little while ago, there where some properties that had tens of fake companies registered at companies house against them.

the homeowners would inform companies house and the companies house would write a letter to the address they held (the homeowners) asking the company to contact companies house…

It was something to do with money laundering / tax evasion rather than identity theft. Let me see if I can find it a link.

Hope you can sort it out OP.

There was a programme on TV a few years ago (I can't remember name of programme) where this happened to someone. They ignored the mysterious letters , went on holiday and came back to find their property having been taken over by the new fake owners. The lock on the door had been changed. The fake owners had reported to the police that THEY were the victims of identity fraud. With access to the house they got documents (probably forged) but with enough truth to convince a gullible police officer that the property was theirs. When real owners tried to go to the police, they were the ones looking suspicious. It took a lo............ng time to convince courts they were the rightful owners

Did nobody think to ask the neighbours?