Today the Queen announced that this Government will introduce a register of the real owners of UK properties. This follows numerous investigations by Global Witness and Transparency International UK that have exposed how the criminal and corrupt use anonymous companies to conceal their identity while they launder and stash dirty money in UK property.
“For too long, the UK has played a pivotal role in global corruption by rolling out the red carpet for the criminal and corrupt. As a result the UK is awash with dirty cash: there are 10,000 anonymously owned properties in Westminster alone,” said Ava Lee, Senior Campaigner at Global Witness.
“This register will change that, by bringing these shady owners into the light.”
Global Witness analysis has revealed that over 87,000 properties in England and Wales are owned by anonymous companies registered in tax havens.
The value of these properties is at least £56 billion according to Land Registry data – and likely to be in excess of £100 billion when accounting for inflation and missing price data.
As of 2019, the areas with the highest number of anonymously owned properties are:
- 10,000 in Westminster;
- 5,729 in Kensington and Chelsea;
- 2,320 in Camden; and
- 1,930 in Tower Hamlets.
In 2015 the anti-corruption NGO revealed how the mystery owner of a £147 million London property empire owned via a network of offshore companies could be linked to a former Kazakh secret police chief accused of murder, torture and money-laundering.
