Closehelm Limited

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Van Praagh family charitable company funding the housing costs of people on low incomes from £3.2 million of commercial property

Closehelm Limited

Type Charitable company
Founded 1985-03-08 (registered)
Registration ID Registered charity 291296; company 01777233
Headquarters London NW11
Area served Throughout London, Manchester City, Israel, Switzerland
Key people Henrietta Wilhelmina Van Praagh (chair)


Closehelm Limited is a charitable company (01777233; memorandum and articles dated 12 December 1983, amended 11 February 2009) registered on 8 March 1985; register areas are London, Manchester, Israel and Switzerland.[1][2] Its trustees and directors are Henrietta Wilhelmina Van Praagh (also company secretary; "Henriette" at Companies House), Hanna Rebecca Grosberg and Dovid Samuel Van Praagh; its registered office is its independent examiner's office, Schofields, in Bournemouth (OCR, PDF p.2, 5).[1][2] Its main object is "to support poor people in financial need", paid for from rents on investment property: in the year to 30 March 2025 income was £147,858, spending £191,637 and grants £135,518, which "typically cover the housing costs of individuals with low incomes" (OCR, PDF p.4, 7). The property is held at £3,155,000 on a trustees' valuation (historic cost £3,611,462) and funds were £3,244,861 (OCR, PDF p.8, 13).[2]

Objects and activities

The charity's registered objects read: "(1) THE ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ORTHODOX JEWISH FAITH. (2) THE RELIEF OF POVERTY. (3) FOR SUCH OTHER PURPOSES AS ARE RECOGNISED BY ENGLISH LAW AS CHARITABLE."[1]

The register describes its activities as: "(1) The advancement of religion in accordance with the orthodox Jewish Faith. (2) The relief of poverty. (3) For such other purposes as are recognised by English law as charitable."[1]

Register classifications: Education/training, The Advancement Of Health Or Saving Of Lives, The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty, Religious Activities.[1]

Areas of operation recorded on the register: Throughout London, Manchester City, Israel, Switzerland.[1]

Trustees

Current trustees, with other charities on which the same register trustee ID appears:[1]

Trustees of Closehelm Limited (register, October 2026)
Trustee Appointed Chair Other trusteeships
Hanna Rebecca Grosberg not recorded —
Henrietta Wilhelmina Van Praagh not recorded Yes —
Dovid Samuel Van Praagh 2015-02-23 —

Historical trustees (UK Government Web Archive)

Trustees shown in archived register pages
Capture date Trustees listed Source
2021-01-06 Dovid Samuel Van Praagh (from 23 February 2015); Hanna Rebecca Grosberg; A Van Praagh (chair); Henrietta Wilhelmina Van Praagh [3]

Companies House lists 16 appointment entries each for Dovid Samuel Van Praagh and Henriette Wilhelmina Van Praagh, mostly property companies including Petherway Limited, Summertide Limited, Oceantide Limited and Highwater Properties Limited, as well as Broadminster Limited; Abraham Jacob Lionel Van Praagh resigned as a Closehelm director on 4 November 2022.[4]

Companies House officers

Companies House lists 5 current and former officers of the charitable company (01777233), 4 of them active.[5]

Finances

Income and expenditure, five most recent reported years
Financial year end Income Expenditure
2021-03-30 £215,948 £100,011
2022-03-30 £193,478 £135,779
2023-03-30 £191,983 £159,799
2024-03-30 £167,343 £171,314
2025-03-30 £147,858 £191,637

Source: register annual-return history.[1]

Archived accounts

Accounts no longer on the live register were found in the UK Government Web Archive:

  • Accounts for the year ended 30/03/2014[6]
  • Accounts for the year ended 30/03/2015[7]
  • Accounts for the year ended 30/03/2016[8]
  • Accounts for the year ended 30/03/2017[9]
  • Accounts for the year ended 30/03/2018[10]
  • Accounts for the year ended 30/03/2019[11]

Funding in Israel

  • FY2025 grants £135,518: to institutions £97,856 – VHLT Limited £75,000, Zaks £21,182 (2024: £93,300), Chanichel Yesivas Jewish Teacher £1,440 and Beth Avraham Synagogue £234 – and to individuals £37,662; no grant is identified as going to Israel, although Israel is a register area (OCR, PDF p.12).[2][1]

Israeli partners

No partner in Israel is named.[2]

Activity beyond the Green Line and support for the IDF

Findings are graded by confidence. "Partner" findings concern the Israeli recipient organisation, not proven use of UK funds.

Evidence of activity beyond the 1949 armistice line
Finding Confidence
No place in Israel is named.[2] Not established

Support for the IDF: No IDF or military funding is stated.[2]

Controversies and regulatory action

  • No Charity Commission inquiry, Official Warning or Gazette insolvency notice naming this charity was found, and its register entry shows no regulatory alert;[12] it is not among the charities named in the Commission's cheque-cashing class-inquiry announcements (May, September and December 2025) or in the September 2026 statement of results.[13][14][15][16] The charities in the Commission's settlements class inquiry (opened August 2026) have not been named, so it is not known whether this charity is among them.[17]
  • Loan from a trustee-controlled company. Broadminster Limited, "a company controlled by the Trustees", has lent the charity £24,652, interest-free, unsecured and repayable on demand (OCR, PDF p.16).[2] Dovid Samuel and Henriette Wilhelmina Van Praagh both list Broadminster Limited (02116604) among their Companies House appointments.[4]
  • Tenancy dispute; grants above available funds. The 2025 accounts include a £60,000 tenancy-dispute settlement, offset by £31,000 of recoverable dilapidation costs, and grants equal to 112% of the year's available funds (OCR, PDF p.4, 13).[2]

Other registers and records

Scotland and Northern Ireland

No entry was found on the Scottish Charity Register for this charity (register export dated 14 October 2026, searched by name).[18] No entry was found on the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland register (API name searches returned zero results).[19]

The Gazette

Searches of The Gazette for the charity's name returned only Companies House filing lists; no insolvency, winding-up or strike-off notice naming the charity was found.[20]

Grants recorded by 360Giving

No grants received or made by this charity are recorded in 360Giving data.[21]

Sanctions screening

The charity's name, its current register trustees, trustees named on archived register pages, trustees and officers named in the accounts read for this profile and (for charitable companies) its Companies House officers were screened against the UK Sanctions List and the OFSI Consolidated List. No match was found. Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor (UK sanctions ID RUS1127) does not appear among this charity's trustees or officers.[22]

Land and property

The register records that the charity owns and/or leases land or property.[1] No title registers were purchased; the HM Land Registry interactive search blocked automated access.[23] Candidate titles and addresses (CCOD dataset and register/accounts data):[24]

  • Investment property £3,155,000 at the trustees' valuation of 30 March 2025 (historic cost £3,611,462); retail tenants, rental yield 4.7% and a void period on the largest unit; addresses not stated – Accounts (OCR, PDF p.4, 13) (source: [2])
  • 27-31 Old Christchurch Road, Bournemouth (BH1 1DS) (title DT61519, freehold; proprietor added 12/03/2009) – CCOD match on the charity's own company number 01777233 (source: [24])
  • 8 Wrawby Street, Brigg (DN20 8JH) (title HS283719, freehold; proprietor added 28/03/2012) – CCOD match on the charity's own company number 01777233 (source: [24])
  • Leasehold flat, Sandbanks, Poole BH13 (title DT476859, leasehold; proprietor added 29/06/2023) – registered to Broadminster Limited (02116604), "a company controlled by the Trustees" that has lent the charity £24,652 (accounts, OCR PDF p.16); not necessarily charity property (source: [24])
  • Freehold property, London NW11 (title NGL306205, freehold; proprietor added 25/11/1987) – Name-only CCOD match: proprietor recorded as "CLOSEHELM LIMITED" with no company number (proprietor added 1987); probably the charity, but not verified against a title register (source: [24])

Parliament

Hansard exact-phrase searches for "Closehelm Limited", "Closehelm" returned 0 contributions in total.[25]

Web archive

The UK Government Web Archive holds 2 archived Charity Commission register pages used in this profile (cited in the sections above). The 2021 archived full print showed the status "Charity reporting is up to date" and "Other regulators: No information available".[3]

External links

  • No current official website.

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Charity Commission for England and Wales, Register of Charities public extract (tables charity, charity_trustee, charity_annual_return_history, charity_area_of_operation, charity_classification, charity_other_names), extract dated 14 October 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 Charity Commission, Closehelm Limited (291296): accounts and annual returns Register of Charities; latest accounts downloaded 16 October 2026 ("PDF p." = page of the PDF file).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Register entry 291296, full print (capture of 20210106) UK Government Web Archive.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Companies House, VAN PRAAGH, Dovid Samuel: appointments and VAN PRAAGH, Henriette Wilhelmina: appointments Find and update company information, viewed 16 October 2026 (both list Broadminster Limited, 02116604, among their appointments).
  5. ↑ Company 01777233: officers Companies House, viewed 16 October 2026.
  6. ↑ Closehelm Limited accounts, year ended 2014-03-30 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200107).
  7. ↑ Closehelm Limited accounts, year ended 2015-03-30 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200107).
  8. ↑ Closehelm Limited accounts, year ended 2016-03-30 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200107).
  9. ↑ Closehelm Limited accounts, year ended 2017-03-30 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200107).
  10. ↑ Closehelm Limited accounts, year ended 2018-03-30 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200107).
  11. ↑ Closehelm Limited accounts, year ended 2019-03-30 UK Government Web Archive (capture of 20200703).
  12. ↑ Charity Commission, Register of Charities, charity overview page (register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/ followed by the organisation number) for each of the 25 batch-15 charities, all retrieved successfully on 16 October 2026 and checked for a "Regulatory alerts" section; none was shown for any of them. Nineteen registered charities showed "Charity reporting is up to date (on time)"; The Kolel Limited showed "up to date (85 days late)" and Practical Compassion for Destitute Children "up to date (2 days late)"; Lionel Black Charitable Trust, Friends of Horim Establishments Tel Aviv and Arad, Prayer for Israel (326132) and The Maurice Wohl Charitable Trust showed "Removed charity".
  13. ↑ Charity Commission, Serious concerns over use of £22 million triggers investigation by charity regulator GOV.UK, 14 May 2025.
  14. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator opens next phase of investigation into 105 charities connected to company cashing cheques GOV.UK, 1 September 2025.
  15. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator announces next charities to be investigated as part of inquiry connected to company cashing cheques GOV.UK, 4 December 2025.
  16. ↑ Charity Commission, Regulator concludes investigation into 4 charities as class inquiry continues GOV.UK, 9 September 2026, with Statement of the results of a class inquiry (same date).
  17. ↑ Charity Commission, Charity regulator opens inquiry into charities working in illegal Israeli settlements GOV.UK, 5 August 2026 (a fact-finding statutory class inquiry initially involving 8 charities which "are not being publicly named at this time").
  18. ↑ Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Scottish Charity Register download OSCR, export dated 14 October 2026; keyword search of the 25 batch-15 charity names found no matching Scottish registration.
  19. ↑ Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, Register of charities search API CCNI, searched 16 October 2026 (keyword searches for each of the 25 batch-15 charity names returned no matching charity; the only result, for "Donkey", was an unrelated Belfast organisation).
  20. ↑ The Gazette: notices matching 'Closehelm' The Gazette, searched 16 October 2026.
  21. ↑ 360Giving API: grants received by GB-CHC-291296 360Giving, queried 16 October 2026.
  22. ↑ Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UK Sanctions List (CSV); Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets (ConList.csv). Batch-15 screening covered 227 name strings: the 25 charity names, current register trustees, trustees named on archived register pages, Companies House officers of the three charitable companies and of J. E. Joseph Trustee Company Limited, directors of the dissolved Friends of Horim company (01966551), and trustees, executive-committee members, examiners and other people named in the accounts and sources read for this batch; matching on surname plus forename tokens, reviewed manually. No forename-and-surname match for any person was found; token matches were surname-only coincidences (for example Hassan, Friedman, Cohen and Sabah) or the generic words "Company Limited"; lists downloaded October 2026.
  23. ↑ HM Land Registry, Search for land and property information GOV.UK – the service returned HTTP 403 (bot protection) to automated access in October 2026; no titles were looked up or purchased. Candidate title numbers below come from the free CCOD / OCOD datasets (October 2026 release), not from paid title registers.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 24.4 HM Land Registry, UK companies that own property in England and Wales (CCOD) and Overseas companies that own property in England and Wales (OCOD) full extracts, October 2026 release, matched on the company numbers of the three charitable companies (01342362, 01777233, 06791037), the corporate trustee of J E Joseph Charitable Fund (11400999), Broadminster Limited (02116604, the related lender named in Closehelm's accounts) and on the charities' registered names; title numbers listed are candidates only – no title registers were purchased.
  25. ↑ UK Parliament, Hansard search API: contributions matching the exact phrase "Closehelm" Hansard, queried 16 October 2026 (Spoken and Written endpoints; quoted-phrase search).
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