It’s about time, this has been a serious issue in the UK.<p>I think it was the BBC that did a program a few years ago with an undercover reporter pretending to be a corrupt Russian government official buying London real estate to launder their stolen gains.<p>The undercover reporter would go to see various flats with intent to purchase, and “admit” to the sales agents flat-out that he worked for a Russian health care office, processing billions of pounds worth of funding, and siphoned a little off for himself.<p>He’d then say he needed to know how to close on a property in such a way to hide his true identity. Without fail every single realtor gave him advice how to set up a shell company or which law firms he could contact that would do it for him by not asking all the required questions.<p>Even after the BBC called those estate agents and law firms to say they were duped, that the buyer was an undercover reporter, and if they had any comment, most refused to even acknowledge any wrongdoing. Despite the undercover buyer clearly indicating the funds were stolen.
It is worth remembering that the UK was the only EU nation to try diluting/blocking wide-reaching legislation to combat tax havens:<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/uk-reject-eu-plans-combat-multinational-tax-avoidance" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/uk-reject-eu-p...</a><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/26/british-government-accused-of-being-soft-on-tax-avoidance" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/26/british-gov...</a><p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/paradise-papers-tax-avoidance-eu-tax-haven-blacklist-uk-blocking-a8043881.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/paradise-pape...</a><p><a href="https://medium.com/the-jist/uk-vs-eu-tax-evasion-investigation-f15643a647a3" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/the-jist/uk-vs-eu-tax-evasion-investigati...</a><p>Whatever the UK does to look like it is addressing the issue of tax avoidance, it's exactly that; pure theatrics.<p>The UK, my own country (or at least its wealthiest citizens) is a huge beneficiary of offshore schemes and complication tax arrangements.
I can't help but think the law is silly in proscribing jail sentences to /unknown overseas people/ for being unknown. For misrepresentation sure - that is pretty much another form of fraud but otherwise a seizure by default on the grounds of no valid registered root owner makes more sense personally.
This feels like a Brexit dividend - no seriously hear me out - the normal conduct of government business is so snarled up with Brexit that almost nothing can get through - so despite lobbyists, it seems good ideas with clear benefits get through simply because government has to do something - and the simplest clearest actually obvious ideas are the only ones everyone can understand in the time acaikable
> "A ban on a foreign entity selling or leasing a property without declaring its beneficial owner, with jail of up to five years and an unlimited fine for those failing to comply"<p>Is there going to be a mechanism to prevent straw man beneficiaries?
Anyone think it is reasonable to predict plummeting high end real estate prices and a further pummelled pound as demand dries up and motivated sellers dump properties and sell pounds here?