to wonder if the assorted despots, money launderers and other foreign crooks in central London are a good thing

[KateShrub]

www.vanityfair.com/society/2013/04/mysterious-residents-one-hyde-park-london

Basically 'prime London' is being sold for millions to untraceable offshore companies with money from fuck knows where. These properties are then left empty 90% of the time.

It seems more than a little dubious.

Of course they are. We all love a good despot, don't we?

I dont see your point really. They are owned by very rich people, who want a base in the UK.

No different to brits who by villas in Spain ..

There is nothing really mysterious about it. They are owned mostly by the sheikhs for whom money is no object.

Nothing really mysterious?

"Trying to penetrate the corporate veils thrown over these apartments is a thankless task. Of the tax havens used, the Isle of Man is probably the most forthcoming: you can easily download company reports online for under $2 apiece. But even here, you will not get far. Take Rose of Sharon 4, which owns a $10.2 million, fifth-floor apartment. Rose 4 was set up in 2010 with five company directors from the Isle of Man, and its shares were held by two almost identical-sounding entities: Barclaytrust International Nominees (Isle of Man) Ltd. and Barclaytrust (Nominees) Isle of Man Ltd. In April 2012, the shares were transferred to a B.V.I. entity listed as ?Prospect Nominees (BVI) Ltd,? and the five Isle of Man directors were replaced by two new ones: Craig Williams, a B.V.I. insolvency practitioner, and Kenneth Morgan, who works for HSBC in the B.V.I. Both declined requests for further information.

Such structures typically straddle several jurisdictions: an Isle of Man company may be owned by a B.V.I. company, which could be held by a Bahamas trust, with trustees somewhere else; either structure might own a Swiss bank account, and so on. At each step of this global dance of ownership, fees are skimmed off, and the secrecy deepens."

Dodgy money, dodgy people hiding behind a maze of companies all registered in different tax havens... and helping to push up property prices, with an effect that feeds down to the point where the poor are being forced out of London. No, of course there's no issue.

Someone is investing.. it really doesnt bother me who. So long as people want to buy the apartments, and jobs for construction companies are created in the building of them, it keeps our economy going.

I think a lot of people have bought London property as a safe asset in a very uncertain world and while I deplore the effect on property prices, there is nothing inherently sinister in this.
I'm also not sure that the post above really demonstrates that the holding structures are obscure. You've already located a fair bit of information about the companies in the structure and who the directors are. there's plenty of easily available means for checking out the background of those individuals, should you need to. What more would you like to know? What they had for breakfast this morning?

I don't see how one elite block of apartments is forcing the unemployed/poor out of London?

KKK, the directors in the paragraph are not the owners of the house. They are just faceless tax lawyers/accountant types - front men.

The basic principle that the owner of a given property is public information is not equivalent to knowing what someone had for breakfast!

How very dare you. I make millions lots of money selling property to this riff-raff these people. How would your life be improved by my not making these millions this money?

I actually sold and shipped a product to a customer at one hyde park so someone does live there!

It's morally wrong to allow non residents to push up property prices to ridiculous levels, leaving people who actually live in the area unable to afford housing and driving poor people out. It's also sickening that there should be so many empty homes when there are record levels of homelessness. As for the types of wealthy buyers; fake corporations, tyrants, oligarchs etc... definitely better off without their presence

The government should introduce rules limiting house purchases only for those who expect to live in them full time.

I also don't get how Martha Stewart is banned from entering the UK yet billionaire dictators and mass murderers are welcomed with open arms

thezebra is bang on!

'Someone is investing, I don't really care who.'

Well I do. I care about the absolutely sickening state of London's housing situation. And a load of empty properties doesn't make for thriving communities or happy local businesses who won't have any customers. And these rich people 'investing' are paying other rich people for houses - not investing in uk businesses or infrastructure or anything else we actually need.

And most of these bastards donn't even pay chuffing stamp duty. Katherine bloody Jenkins set up a company to buy her multi million flat at 1 Hyde Park so she could avoid it. Disgraceful.

The whole thing is a fucking shambles. But I don't have the answer, sadly.

And yeah, there's the added issue of these despots and money launderers

Sorry OP - rant over!

You know who the owner of the property is, Kate. It is a corporate entity. The individuals responsible for the governance of that entity have also been identified by you. Lawyers and accountants are regulated by their respective professional bodies and if you want to know more about them there are lots of accessible resources.
Corporate ownership of real property is not new. I think you are seeing a conspiracy where there isn't one.

Yanbu. Foreign investors are driving up property prices and making it hard for families to afford homes.

How many families do you think there are in the market for multi million pound homes in London?

They didn't use to be multimillion pound homes. Actually we are talking modest sized flats in many cases, now going for 2 million.

Here's an illustration of this:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-37768813.html

Truly vomitous prose:

"Coach House For Sale and on the horns of a dilemma - should it remain part of the servant hall or upgrade and become the master's residence?
A coach house can stay true to its roots and house the conveyances and attendant grooms - or in today's parlance, the staff flat and garaging for a fleet of luxury cars. Or it could be reborn as a delightful two or three bedroom house, in the village-like environment of a charming cobbled mews complete with stone entrance arch.

Such is the quandary facing the potential buyer of this property. Unleash one's imagination (and architect) on what is a proper sized space, and turn it into a really very satisfactory house, with an enormous open-plan reception room and kitchen downstairs? Or indulge long held dreams of car-owning supremacy, save oneself a spot of subterranean excavation, and put the staff upstairs.

It's a tricky one, but either option is feasible and sensible, and more than that, hard to come by in today's market. It is a quiet and peaceful mews, yet incredibly well located. As investments go, it seems to be a good one - the first freeholds on this mews were sold for between eighty-seven and one hunderd and forty-seven pounds in about 1860, so there has clearly been an uplift since then!"

What the fuck?

Clearly while £2 million now, this was once a family house.

Kate please pass the sick bag. That is truly the most vomitous prose to leave the pen of an estate agent..

Meanwhile ordinary locals face being chucked out of London and sent to Peterborough