Weirdly enough I can change the IPv4 address of the adapter (either via VBoxManage or the GUI) but only between 192.168.56.1 and 192.168.63.254. anything outside this range fails.
Command: ["hostonlyif", "ipconfig", "vboxnet0", "--ip", "192.168.88.1", "--netmask", "255.255.255.0"]
Stderr: VBoxManage: error: Code E_ACCESSDENIED (0x80070005) - Access denied (extended info not available)
VBoxManage: error: Context: "EnableStaticIPConfig(Bstr(pszIp).raw(), Bstr(pszNetmask).raw())" at line 242 of file VBoxManageHostonly.cpp