The foreign owners ‘hiding’ £190bn of UK property

The ultimate owners of almost 45,000 properties worth an estimated £190 billion are hidden from public view via offshore companies, in what experts say is likely to be a mass breach of the UK’s anti-money-laundering rules put in place after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A new investigation reveals how these strict government rules—designed to ensure homes are not being used to launder ill-gotten money or hide cash in the case of international sanctions—are being widely ignored and not policed.

After the Economic Crime Act passed into law in March 2022, foreign owners of UK property were given until January 31, 2023, to register on the Register of Overseas Entities, managed by Companies House, and to declare the identity of the “beneficial owner”. This is defined as anyone who owns or controls an overseas company that owns property, typically by holding more than 25 per cent of the shares or voting rights.

Failure to register can result in fines of hundreds of thousands of pounds, plus criminal prosecution. The requirement applies retrospectively to overseas entities in England and Wales that bought property or land on or after January 1, 1999; in Scotland after December 8, 2014; and in Northern Ireland from September 5, 2022.

Tax Policy Associates, a legal policy think tank run by Dan Neidle, a former tax lawyer, examined a Land Registry list of 97,978 properties registered to offshore companies in England and Wales, then cross-checked how many had registered their ultimate owners with Companies House, as is legally required.

In the case of 43,401 properties (about 44 per cent), the think tank said it was impossible to find out who truly owned them. In these cases, it found that the property owners had either:

• Not registered at all (8.4 per cent, or 8,198 of the 97,978 properties);

• Registered the property but claimed to have no beneficial owner (9.5 per cent, or 9,265);

• Registered but entered another offshore company as the owner (5 per cent, or 4,942);

• Listed a trust as the owner (21.4 per cent, or 20,996).

Note: Trusts can legitimately hold property, but the people who ultimately control or benefit from them should be registered as beneficial owners—something Neidle says often does not happen, with lawyers or accountants listed instead.

The proportion of properties added to the register but claiming to have no beneficial owner has been growing since 2022. By December 2022, this group accounted for 9.1 per cent, rising to 12.4 per cent the following year and 19.2 per cent last year.

Neidle did not include Scotland or Northern Ireland in the research because of the different ways data is stored there.

Neidle says some overseas owners may not have registered simply by mistake. “Some of this will be accidental, but we think a significant proportion is likely to be intentional,” he says.

Some organisations may claim—correctly, but in rare cases—that there is no single owner with more than 25 per cent control, so none needs to be registered. This may apply to large developments run by pension funds, such as purpose-built rental developments.

As well as human error or ignorance of the rules, Neidle believes one motivation for failing to register could be to avoid paying capital gains tax when selling—non-UK residents have been required to pay it since April 2015.

By hiding their identities, it becomes harder for HMRC to track down real owners for unpaid tax, Neidle says. “It’s important we get to grips with this, from a tax-evasion perspective as well as the more obvious sanctions-busting and money-laundering ones,” he adds.

Campaigners say poor enforcement by Companies House, owing to limited resources, is encouraging a slapdash approach to the register because people believe they will not be caught. Those failing to correctly register properties face civil financial penalties of up to £50,000 per home, plus additional fines of up to £2,500 per day that the property remains unregistered, on top of possible criminal prosecution that could lead to further fines and even imprisonment.

However, last year it emerged that only 3 per cent of penalties (14 out of 444) issued to non-compliant offshore companies were collected, with £700,000 recovered from fines totalling £22.99 million. “It looks like a classic example of a policy being introduced without the enforcement resources to support it,” Neidle says.

How—and where—the money is being concealed

By far the largest number of overseas structures holding English and Welsh property recorded on the Register of Overseas Entities are based in the low-tax Crown dependency of Jersey.

Some 3,234 properties that claimed there was no beneficial owner, for example, are registered with Jersey-based companies. In addition, 6,715 of all trusts listed are financial services companies in Jersey. The island also has 1,883 properties where another offshore company is named as the owner—the highest figure in all three categories.

The country with the largest proportion of unregistered owners is Saudi Arabia, with 234 out of 252 properties (92.9 per cent) not listed. In one case, 125 properties owned by a single Saudi company are not registered with Companies House.

Notably, a number of entities in Liechtenstein, known for its strict banking privacy laws and favourable tax rates, have failed to declare a beneficial owner—107 of 468 properties (22.9 per cent).

No beneficial owner has been declared in 49.2 per cent of UK properties registered to French companies, while in the case of Denmark, the figure is 63.5 per cent.

The top five residential properties owned by trusts or overseas companies

The vast majority of properties with no overseas beneficial owners registered are in London, with an estimated:

• £38 billion worth of properties listing only trustees;

• £22 billion with no owner listed;

• £37 billion with owners listed as overseas companies;

• £10 billion not registered at all.

In total, foreign owners in the capital account for £107 billion of the £188 billion of property in England and Wales where ownership has not been properly declared.

• The most expensive home on the register is in Holland Park, west London, purchased for £53 million in 2016 by a company in the British Virgin Islands. The beneficiaries are listed as two Isle of Man trustees.

• The second-equal most valuable property is also in Holland Park and was bought for £21 million by a Bahamian company in 2016. The beneficiary is listed as a Cayman Islands trustee holding the home for an unidentified party.

• A flat on Horse Guards Avenue, near St James’s Park, was bought for £21 million by a Cypriot company in 2023. The beneficiaries are two individuals working for Cypriot firms, acting as trustees for an unknown party.

• An apartment on Grosvenor Square, near Hyde Park, was bought for £20 million by an Isle of Man company in 2021. The beneficiary is an Isle of Man trustee company.

• Finally, an apartment at Park Crescent, on the edge of Regent’s Park, was bought for £18 million in 2021 by an American company.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing in any of the above structures.

What should be done now

Margot Mollat, a senior researcher at the anti-corruption body Transparency International UK, says enforcement must be stepped up.

“It must be remembered that the original urgency for this disclosure, after the invasion of Ukraine, was to help us understand who owns property in this country. Until we fix these transparency loopholes, we don’t have a clear picture,” she says.

Transparency International UK’s own report, Through the Keyhole, published in February 2023, found that almost 35,000 properties had missed the registration deadline. It also highlighted the proliferation of companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey, and the Middle East.

“While there has been good progress, there is still some way to go before we truly know who owns property here,” Mollat says. “As much as Companies House is trying to enforce this to the best of its ability, it is frequently chasing companies in remote jurisdictions.

“Some of these companies may have been redomiciled, changed their names, or reincorporated. So even if the property hasn’t been sold, the entity named in the register may not match the entity named on the Land Registry. That creates confusion and raises questions about the system. Enforcement is quite tricky.”

As part of an anti-corruption strategy published in December, the government has promised to review how the register operates to “better identify and verify beneficial ownership of assets, close loopholes, and ensure systems are robust against misuse”.

In a possible signal of tighter trust-related rules, it added that arguments for transparency “are finely balanced with the right to privacy, so the government must consider this matter carefully”.

Baroness Margaret Hodge, the government’s new anti-corruption champion, will lead the review, with a report expected this autumn.

The government says: “We will look at this report carefully as part of our commitment to fighting illegal financial activity through the Register of Overseas Entities. Companies House can issue warning notices and impose financial penalties on overseas entities that fail to register or comply with ongoing requirements, and these entities are prevented from selling, leasing, or raising finance against their land until they comply.”

Source: The Times