Landlords who feel recent laws have singled them out may be interested to know that one group of property owners appears to have avoided significant regulation.
An investigation by the BBC and a group called Transparency International shows that owners of around 50,000 UK properties held by foreign companies remain hidden from public view, despite new laws.
The Register of Overseas Entities, launched in August 2022, was meant to reveal who ultimately owns UK property. Overseas companies with property in the UK - bought since January 1999 in England and Wales and since December 2014 in Scotland - were supposed to reveal the identity of their owners by January 31
But the BBC and Transparency International found almost half of firms required to declare who is behind them failed to do so.
The law allowed overseas organisations that already owned land in the UK were given a six-month period to do reveal their beneficial owners; properties newly purchased by overseas buyers would have to confirm immediately.
However the analysis suggests that some 18,000 offshore companies, which between them hold more than 50,000 properties in England and Wales, either ignored the law or filed information in such a way that it remains impossible to know who the individuals are who ultimately own and benefit from them.
"While the register is starting to serve its intended purpose, our analysis reveals there are far too many companies that could be trying to skirt the rules, not knowing they exist, or ignoring them altogether” says Duncan Hames, Director of Policy at Transparency International UK.
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Always the way! British or landlords residing in Britain get hammered by the law because its easy to implement whilst holding companies can skirt the law and are immune to prosecution.
Perhaps they can claim non Dom status like Rishi's Mrs
I own an overseas entity which owns UK property. I registered y company last year and had confirmation in December.
Companies House contributed to send reminders through to January, and the latest round of mail (dated 19 January and sent to all addresses of properties owned which tenants opened) categorically stated that the company had NOT registered. This has happened to a great number of people dealt with by the same international accountancy firm I use. I contacted Companies House, which took 5 days to reply to say this may have affected a ‘small number’..that they had now updated their records and to ignore reminders. What is at least strange is that this is the organisation which allocated a registration number on 22 December but which needed to update its records at the end of January. I strongly suspect that the publicity surrounding non registration and continued resistance is greatly overstated
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