Four Companies Registered at Folkestone and Hythe Council Homes Raise Tenancy Fraud Audit Questions

A new Cabinet Office agreement with Airbnb will allow participating councils to compare social-housing records with holiday-let listings to identify possible illegal subletting. Early work has produced 470 potential cases, while more than 450,000 properties are expected to be covered. The national scheme concerns short-term lets; it doesn’t involve Companies House. But the principle is familiar enough: match one dataset against another, flag the oddities and investigate before calling the point.

The Shepway Vox Team made much the same argument locally in January 2023. Looking at Phoenix Court, Rowan Court and Ross House, we said Companies House addresses could be compared with FHDC’s tenancy records and wrote: “This is simple and easy to do. It is not rocket science.” Senior council sources told us then that FHDC wasn’t carrying out that matching.

Three and a half years later, the ball has come sailing back over the net.

Our latest Companies House check—a separate exercise from the Airbnb agreement, using public company records rather than holiday-let data—has found four live companies registered at three exact addresses within blocks or schemes FHDC treats as part of its council-housing operation.

Companies House records Goaga and Stefanov as the sole directors of GRANTR and KREDDO respectively, with both men also using 41 Rowan Court as their correspondence address. Safari is the active director of Happy Transport Services, while Porter is the sole director of SFP Cleaning Services.

The newest pairing is quite a doubles act. GRANTR and KREDDO were incorporated on the same day, use the same flat, and both declare the same activity—educational support services. Goaga is recorded as Romanian and Stefanov as Bulgarian; their identities were verified through the same authorised corporate service provider, GREAT FINANCE LTD.

Two companies, two directors, one address and one incorporation date.

FHDC’s Housing Revenue Account business plan says the council trialled fast-fibre broadband at Phoenix Court and Rowan Court for “tenants”, placing the block squarely inside its landlord operation rather than somewhere beyond the baseline. FHDC’s internal tenure records remain the final Hawk-Eye on whether number 41 is currently rented, leasehold or held under another arrangement, but Rowan Court itself is plainly treated as council housing stock.

Ross House is the cleanest line call. FHDC calls it a “council-managed housing scheme” and says the 16-flat block forms part of improvements to its social-housing stock. Happy Transport Services gives Flat 15 as its registered office, lists removal services as its activity and is active with an active proposal to strike off; its accounts and confirmation statement are both overdue.

Companies House currently records Helena Safari as British. However, the Companies House-derived record captured in our January 2023 investigation described her as Czech. The published filing trail doesn’t show when or why the recorded nationality changed, so it would be out to claim she changed citizenship on any particular date.

At Albert Costain Court, SFP Cleaning Services is registered at Flat 5. It was incorporated in April 2023, lists general building cleaning and other cleaning services, and Porter uses the same address for correspondence. FHDC publishes Albert Costain Court through its council tenants service as a 24-flat Independent Living scheme whose gardens are maintained by the council.

FHDC then serves an unforced error of its own: the scheme page heading gives CT20 1HN, while the image caption and Companies House use CT20 1HB. The flat and building match remains clear, but a housing authority’s public addresses shouldn’t be bouncing from one side of the court to the other.

We compared the three addresses with FHDC’s July 2026 business-rates data. None appears as a separately assessed non-domestic property. The file does contain land behind Ross House occupied by Veolia and described as “Land Used For Storage”, but that is a separate hereditament—not Flat 15 and not Happy Transport Services. Absence from the rating list doesn’t prove that no business is being run from a home, nor that anybody is dodging rates.

Government guidance says home-based businesses don’t usually pay business rates where only a small part of the home is used, such as a bedroom serving as an office, or goods are sold by post. Rates may apply where customers visit, staff work there or the home has been physically altered for business use.

FHDC’s tenancy agreement sends down a much harder first serve: “You must not run a business from your property without first obtaining our written permission.” It adds that permission “will not be withheld unreasonably”, while noise, nuisance and possible damage will be considered. The agreement also permits inspections during routine tenancy reviews or for the “investigation or prevention of tenancy fraud”.

But a registered office isn’t automatically a trading address. It is the official physical address where company correspondence must reach somebody acting for the company, and Companies House warns that it doesn’t check the accuracy of information filed. These records are therefore a tripwire, not a verdict.

That’s what data matching is meant to sort out.

FHDC’s last dedicated tenancy-fraud audit was carried out in 2022/23. It received limited assurance and generated 12 recommendations. Yet the March 2026 four-year audit plan still lists 2022/23 as the last review, records the assurance as “Limited” and marks the follow-up “To do”. The scoreboard has barely moved.

Housing responsibility now rests with Cllr Rebecca Shoob (pictured), Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness. The questions aren’t a five-set epic: are these exact homes currently tenanted; did the occupiers seek written permission; was it granted; what activity was declared; does FHDC routinely match Companies House data against its tenancy records; and what became of those 12 audit recommendations?

Possible innocent explanations remain. Permission may exist. A company may use an address only as a postbox. A filing may be wrong. Those possibilities are reasons to check Hawk-Eye carefully—not to put the racquet back in its bag.

Four live companies. Three council-housing addresses. One limited-assurance audit still waiting for a proper replay.

The ball’s with FHDC.

NB:- The inclusion of a person or entity in this blogpost is not intended to suggest or imply that they have engaged in illegal or improper conduct. The data comes directly from Companies House and is publicly available.

The Shepway Vox Team

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