Mystery deepens over Farage's Clacton house

As Nigel Farage pounds the sunny streets of Clacton in his by-election battle against a bin, the mystery of how his partner Laure Ferrari managed to pay £885,000 cash for a house in the Reform leader’s constituency deepens.

The property is in Ferrari’s name, yet her lack of visible funds has led some to speculate that Farage may have contributed. He has always denied this, yet new accounts at her company Baxter Laois show no signs of the kind of booming business that would allow its owner to splash out on a big house on the Essex coast.

If he did contribute some of the funds, Ferrari purchasing the house in her own name would have saved Farage an estimated £44,000 in the higher rate of stamp duty to which he would have been liable, given he already owns a number of other properties.

In November 2024, in response to criticism about the amount of time he was spending in his constituency, Farage said: “I’ve just exchanged contracts on the house that I’ll be living there in – is that good enough?… I’ve bought a house in Clacton. What more do you want me to do?”

And in May 2025, after it became clear that the property had been bought entirely in Ferrari’s name, he said: “The main reason my name does not appear is for security reasons. I would have thought that obvious.”

But some months later, as speculation grew about whether Farage might have ducked a higher tax bill, he explained that Ferrari came from “a very wealthy French family and can afford [the property]”, though a subsequent BBC investigation raised questions about the size of her family’s alleged wealth.

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Now new accounts show no signs of money-making at Baxter Laois, the firm of which Ferrari is the sole director and through which Farage once flogged his Red, White and Blue Gin (“There is no better way to end a fully packed Cornish day than with a glass of gin and tonic as the sun goes down over the western horizon.”) She may have other sources of income, but none are registered with Companies House.

Meanwhile Baxter Laois, which she set up in 2015 as LF Consultancy Services, held just £1,232 in assets as at October 31, 2025. Ferrari reported a £11,321 deficit after accounting for £12,553 of bills.

The deficit in its capital and reserves represent a £315 increase on the £11,006 it was down by in 2024. The unaudited accounts – signed off and filed this week – make it the worst year to date for the venture, which was lined up for closure last summer before withdrawing its striking-off application at Companies House.

Its new accounts, the first since the U-turn, reveal a near doubling of the £6,789 in red ink reported for 2023 and £20,000 down on the £10,000 or so held in the firm between 2019 and 2022, as well as being worse than the £333 held in 2018, the £1,974 held in 2017 and the £2,219 returned in 2016 – its first year of trading.

Still, despite the meagre returns, the firm has managed to fork out for a salary for one member of staff, “including directors”, during its 10 years of trading, although the pay – presumed to have gone to Ferrari as sole director – remains a mystery as it is not itemised in the accounts.

Last autumn, BBC probed French property and company records and was unable to find evidence that Ferrari’s parents had the means to give their daughter a significant contribution towards the purchase of the home.

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Her retired father owned a transport company which showed a deficit on its books at the time it was dissolved in 2020, while the apartment he owns with his wife in the suburbs of Strasbourg is estimated to be worth only around €300,000.

In May this year Ferrari herself, who ordinarily shuns the limelight, gave a rare interview to France’s Le Monde newspaper, refusing to confirm how she paid for the house – which came with four bedrooms and a heated swimming pool – and adding gnomically: “There’s more than one way to pay for a house.”

Le Monde reported that Ferrari “dodged the question” of “Did she buy her property thanks to a family inheritance?”

“Yes and no, that would be a very large inheritance… there’s more than one way to pay for a house,” she told the paper, which says she “just barely made it clear that the money did not necessarily come from her parents”.

“I can’t say how much my grandmother gave, that’s my business,” Ferrari continued. “The main thing is that I paid all the taxes, there was no tax evasion, and the house is in my name.”

Once again, Farage’s finances are as clear as mud. Not that he even needed another property: the moneybags politician already owned three via his private firm Thorn in The Side, as well as his former marital home in Kent and a £1.4 million Surrey mansion snapped up two years ago in the wake of receiving £5m from Thai-based billionaire Christopher Harborne – a payment that is a whole saga in itself…