Foreign investors have bought GBP 100bn worth of London property over the last six years, according to figures published in the UK Evening Standard. Since 2008, there have been 27,989 property purchases by overseas companies, many registered in tax havens in an effort to hide the identities of the buyers, the daily writes, citing the Private Eye magazine, which obtained the information through freedom of information requests.
The Metropolitan Police said officers are investigating property purchases exceeding GBP 180m for corruption. Almost all of these purchases were by offshore companies. Private Eye uncovered, for example, that nearly all the houses along London’s Kensington Palace Gardens were bought by companies registered in Delaware, the Bahamas, St Vincent and the Grenadines, the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus.
“These figures show a huge volume snapped up via tax havens — and whether it’s laundering money through a Chelsea mansion or dodging tax in a major regeneration project, Londoners are losing out,” said Green London Assembly member Darren Johnson.
