Foreign criminals driving up UK house prices.

Loughton_Monkey

antrobus wrote: »

Nevertheless EAs are subject to AML. They have to register with HMRC and they are supposed to follow the rules, and report any "supicious activity".

1. How many Estate Agents are going to decline to sell a £10m property (or grass them up) when another few similar sales might surely follow?

2. If they do report this two or three times, then someone will notice that he reports only foreigners and take him to the Race Relations Board.

3. Were I to consider laundering my own money, the last thing I would use is property. It would have to be in a more liquid and moveable form to make it viable. For HMRC, seizing a house must be extremely easy compared to gold coins in an unknown deposit box or cash in an account that can be wired away in two seconds.

Loughton_Monkey

padington wrote: »

What are the royal family buying now ?

A contract on David Dinsmore, editor of The Sun.

purch

antrobus wrote: »

There is no bar on property being owned by overseas corporations.

No there isn't :cool:

antrobus

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

1. How many Estate Agents are going to decline to sell a £10m property (or grass them up) when another few similar sales might surely follow?....

All of them, if they think there's a risk of getting done for failure to report. You can get 14 years you know.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

...2. If they do report this two or three times, then someone will notice that he reports only foreigners and take him to the Race Relations Board.....

The Race Relations Board? That was abolished in 1977. That's 38 years ago.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

...3. Were I to consider laundering my own money, the last thing I would use is property. It would have to be in a more liquid and moveable form to make it viable. For HMRC, seizing a house must be extremely easy compared to gold coins in an unknown deposit box or cash in an account that can be wired away in two seconds.

I don't think you quite grasp the point of money laundering. When you start your assets are already in that highly liquid and moveable form generally known as cash. Your goal is to transform that hidden cash into some kind of very respectable and non hidden asset, and you can't get any more respectable and non hidden than property.

This is why the mob built Las Vegas and cocaine built Miami.:)

purch

The money laundering regulations are like many of these Government rule books, full of stuff you need to put in place, but not much else.

You need to have a responsible person and a policy, and as long as you follow your policies then you should be safe.

It's like the Health and Safety stuff. You have to undertake a risk assessment and document any significant findings.

Sorted, everyone is now safe :eek:

chewmylegoff

vivatifosi wrote: »

2. Why is housing allowed to be owned by offshore corporations? Shouldn't this be made difficult? Not only for money laundering reasons, but also how would you enforce an action against a negligent owner if a property is let out?

or if no-one pays the council tax.

chewmylegoff

antrobus wrote: »

Charging order.

A charging order on the property isn't much use if the property can be sold by the shares in the overseas company changing hands.

I think councils have powers to take control of rented property in certain situations but that may only be unlicensed HMOs.

antrobus

chewmylegoff wrote: »

A charging order on the property isn't much use if the property can be sold by the shares in the overseas company changing hands....

But that's not selling the property. That's selling the owner of the property. The new owner of the owner would still have the charging order on the underlying property, and would still have to face the consequences of an application for a power of sale.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

...I think councils have powers to take control of rented property in certain situations but that may only be unlicensed HMOs.

Councils have powers to stick charging orders on property. They also have powers to issue CPOs as long as they have a “compelling case in the public interest”.

Landofwood

I can't help but feel that even if the article was 100% accurate, its impact on UK house prices is negligible. A few properties may well be impacted in the "scam", but the wider property market will hardly be affected, if at all.

kabayiri

C4 despatches did a show on this topic a few weeks back
They had a dubious pretend Russian government official and his trophy girlfriend
Despite him freely admitting his dodgy money source to the sales guy a blind eye was turned in every single case
These sales intermediaries are bound by the regulations. They should all have filled a SAR , but hey ho , commission was on the line