Various issues have come to light since the controversial Panama Papers leak. While various famous personalities around the world have been exposed to have secret offshore accounts, various anomalous practices including in real estate have been discovered. This includes the UK real estate market.
According to CNBC, the recent Panama Papers leak has sparked fears that some London real estate properties may have been or are financed with laundered money. The report states that according to the Guardian, "around 2,800 Mossack Fonseca companies appear on a U.K. land registry list of overseas property owners dating from 2014."
The report states that law enforcement agencies claim that the UK may seem an ideal choice for criminals to launder money via real estate because of the "country's political stability, image of respectability, and lavish lifestyle offerings." However, according to data from the United Nations, the UK estate agents only found a total of 355 suspicious activities in 2015, which only comprise 0.09 percent of all the reports filed.
To prevent the UK real estate from being used for anomalous practices such as money laundering, the government strives to improve transparency and has created a database that will be accessed by the public. It will be launched later this year and will include the names of the owners of registered companies in the UK.
"This will make it much harder for corrupt individuals to use London as a safe haven for their illicit wealth," Rachel Davies, head of U.K. advocacy and research at the U.K. arm of the global non-governmental organization Transparency International, told CNBC.
In related news, it can be recalled that the Panama Papers leak controversy has been linked to the Miami luxury real estate boom. Through the Panama Papers, it was discovered that the growth of Miami luxury real estate was brought about by money laundering through condos.
