The unsolved mystery of who owns 221b Baker Street
qz.com
qz.com
Has it been proposed that owners of this sort of property publicly report real ownership? There are cases where we have managed to create all sorts of de-anonomizing reporting requirements for the non-billionaires (e.g. for cash deposits). There are limitations on property rights for absentee owners (even non-anonymous ones) as with squatter’s rights.
Is it so illiberal to decline to enforce property rights for anonymous shell corporations that countries that don’t do it will be ostracized? Is it so hard to require that the real name of owners be published on a title, or just politically impossible?
Maybe it would be safe for the economy if it's done according to a law which is not retroactively applied to existing owners. Something like requiring new owners to be personally identified before they can even be granted ownership. Then there's no seizing required.
(The UK could also do with cadastral mapping to solve a different set of problems; available only in Scotland)
The internal structure is an-onymous: c. 1600, "without a name;" 1670s, "published under no name, of unknown authorship," from Late Latin anonymus, from Greek anonymos "without a name," from an- "without" (see an- (1)) + onyma, Æolic[4] dialectal form of onoma "name" (from PIE root *no-men- "name").[2]
Onoma survives in onomatopoeia[3] (and other words).
[1] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/onymous "Used Rarely"
[2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/anonymous
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia
[4] Aeolic Greek (/iːˈɒlɪk/; also Aeolian /iːˈoʊliən/, Lesbian or Lesbic dialect) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolic_Greek
Also, we (in the U.S.) already do this in limited circumstances. For example, if I don't pay my property taxes for long enough, my property will by auctioned by the state. My tax standing is publically reported from the tax assesor's database so that my neighbors can hunt for bargains.
Perhaps legislation could add ownership reporting requirements for future purchases, or require better identity reporting for future property tax payments.
(England has its own craziness of chancel repair liability instead)
I’ve just sold my property in the UK and at the advice of my solicitors took out easement insurance to guard against denial of access of the private road that leads to the house that no-one knows who owns (even though the local council maintain it).
Of course not, that's absurd, you would have to put up with AML like everyone else. And to be clear, that's what we're discussing here - a form of money laundering reporting. No actual property is seized from someone who obeys the new laws, and all they need to do is disclose ownership.
The idea that this is somehow an onerous burden is just a reflexive boot-licking defense of the rich. They will be fine.
Not really, it happens all the time, see eminent domain and adverse possession, etc. It's generally viewed as against public policy for land to be left unused.
Perhaps they could assess special, onerous taxes on property without a clear owner, and require said owner(s) identify themselves clearly when they're paid. If they don't, the property could be seized to pay the taxes.
Didn't the South African government recently decided to do that? Taking white-owned farmland without compensation? We'll see how it goes.
Just look what happened in Zimbabwe.
If you want to find out what's really happening, I recommend reading Private Eye.
I certainly don't see anything wrong with it.
You are in Nordic country N, and your filings show your income of $X (a high number). Your relatives A,B,C live in country R, which features large amount of mobsters. Said mobsters learn of the value of X via N's public info system, and make lives of A,B,C uncomfortable or dangerous or downright kidnap them to receive a chunk of $X. And no, A,B,C cannot always move for a variety of reasons.
However, a nation really only owes loyalty to its people. You can't stop an otherwise positive because some people might get hurt. We'd get nothing done in that case.
As it turns out this man was a liar, confidence man, and tax cheat. Had there been open tax records, I could have (in)validated some of his claims and saved myself severals years of struggle and many thousands in subsequent debt.
It's not just for criminals to leverage. It's for the common man to use to reduce information asymmetry and, this one might be a bit dystopian, but help self-police that everyone pays their share.
It's undeveloped land, so I suppose I could start planting vegetables on it. But as another commenter said, I'd bet they simply send henchman to destroy my work.
Henchmen have higher ups.
In many places if you squat on a place long enough it becomes yours.
defending their claim to the land visibly
requires them to break cover.
What you do is have the building directly owned/managed by (something equivalent to) a Real Estate Investment Trust [1], then have 100% of the shares of that REIT owned by a company in BVI/Panama/Cayman Islands, where that company doesn't have to disclose its shareholders. Or if you have to disclose beneficial owners with more than 25% of shares, have 5 anonymous companies own 20% each, and claim you just don't know if those anonymous companies have the same ultimate owner.
Thus, the REIT exists to defend their claim to the land, collect rent, manage and maintain the property - just nobody knows who owns the REIT.
Nobody wants to eliminate the property-owned-and-managed-by-a-company-owned-by-other-companies structure, as it's how pension funds/retail investors invest in property. So it's a tough question how to regulate this properly.
I’m not suggesting that we do away with the REIT + corps structure, but just require them to obey AML laws.
Which can also lead to you being charged for unlawful dumping of trash, and if there happens to be a battery or other toxic/dangerous stuff in the trash, that can increase the fines.
If you want to monopolise an area of land, you need to pay your fair share. Perhaps for this building the land may cost society (through externalities) £2m a year, so unless that is paid (by whoever), the land gets repossessed and sold to pay the outstanding tax bill.
Far more equitable way of funding society than charging those who work for a living.
A land value taxation ensures that whoever the 'owner' is, the cost to society of that owner monopolising the land is paid.
And to be precisely, his niece. When the guy was studying in Geneva, he was bragging about that left and right. My highschool classmate Olga Fedotova studied with him.
I see it a big surprise that something known even to schoolchildren out there, is such a "revelation" to the British public and law enforcement. The hearsay was around for at least 8 or 7 years.
More likely, they simply have no willpower for that
There is no use for me in anonymity here. Dozens of people here and in YC known me in person. Even if I were to say that under a different acc, who I am would be instantly clear.
You see, their believe in Western politicians and bureaucrats being their playthings is so strong, that they don't even mind bragging of their London estates in the public. Heck, one of the biggest London and NYC property owner Avramovich literally said on live TV "yes, I killed that guy, what will you do?", and his London mansion still stand inviolable to UK law enforcement; UK police have not lifted a finger to do anything about him even after that.
Could you share a link to this, would love to see it...
May, and. co, and many of her predecessors gloss over terminology of rule of law, and that they can't do anything with mafia mansions unless the guilt of an owner is legally proved - this is a lie.
In both UK, and the US the executive branch has a carte blanch laws to do anything with whose ever property these days, as well as to warrantlessly wiretap them, and put them in indefinite detention.
For example, a no fly list, an OFAC SDN non-person list, EU red list. An executive branch has an unlimited power to put anybody on such list. Being put on that list effectively gives a designated person an effect of Orwell's non-personhood. A right way to deal with those mafiosos, yet have you ever seen anybody, anymuch major being put there?
In Palo Alto, Chinese money is flooding in and pushing up prices, but the houses are actually inhabited, so yes, it's driving up prices but it would be harder to complain that something nefarious is going on (and indeed I haven't seen any such complaints).
You're missing a step in the money laundering here - you can't use completely unlaundered cash to anonymously buy investment property, you have to launder somehow first.
Real estates in rich jurisdictions are used for stashing/anonymously investing money, not laundering money.
I don't think this is laundering as much as finding a mattress to hide it under that pays back a bit on your investment. So that if you lose everything you can liquidate your hidden little pockets of real estate and maybe make a bit of cash while fleeing to where ever.
Assuming a sufficiently friendly state apparatus that enforces the ordinary claims of ownership. If that goes away, or is turned against you, it's not yours anymore. With stuff like real estate, you can't exactly smuggle it out of the country.
(This is what the Global Magnitsky Act and international equivalents are meant to do- having your personal assets frozen by the US or UK government suddenly makes your frozen assets somewhat less valuable to you...)
The existence of a safe offshore cash stash is a benefit to some autocrats and a risk to others - it allows their underlings to escape.
I didn't notice any statement in the article opposing foreign ownership in general. Cameron states "We need to stop corrupt officials or organised criminals using anonymous shell companies."
Why does ownership need to be anonymous to perform the function you describe if not to conceal obvious money laundering? It is specualated in the article that the real owners are civil servants with billions in wealth that is inexplicable absent corruption.
I think addressing this kind of corruption is an international cooperation problem and, in utilitarian terms, the people who are harmed by financial corruption stand to gain more by solving it than the people who profit from that kind of anonymity.
I’m certainly willing to be convinced by evidence that a considerable number of foreign citizens need to own shell corporations in my country simply to protect their liberty and property, but I find that pretty far fetched.
I suspect that the discrepancy in the $/sqft ranges is more about the property quality and scarcity at that range; you pay a premium for an 8,000 sq. foot duplex with a terrace that overlooks central park and has world-class finishes and amenities because there are far fewer of them than ultra-wealthy people who want them.
I understand that Portugal is going to require the registration of ownership of all rural land, and any land that is not registered will be reclaimed by (presumably) the state.
[0] https://www.nautadutilh.com/en/our-expertise/special-topics2...
It seems to me that anybody who has the resources to have a network of off-shore shell corporations laundering money for them while owning 24% or less of all of them would have no problem providing a plausible explanation for how they came to own a particular piece of property.
For whatever reasons houses are considered appreciating assets, even super old ones.
But this can also be achieved in current property tax regimes by upzoning to allow more density. This will raise the value of the land (because it's now possible to build more density on it), which once reassessed, will also raise the property taxes.