Dirty money

padington

Looks like London's million pound plus bracket are going to get hammered even more ...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/28/david-cameron-fight-dirty-money-uk-property-market-corruption

Will it mean more rises for normal priced property as people try to stay well under a million to keep safe and save on stamp duty ?

Generali

padington wrote: »

Looks like London's million pound plus bracket are going to get hammered even more ...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/28/david-cameron-fight-dirty-money-uk-property-market-corruption

Will it mean more rises for normal priced property as people try to stay well under a million to keep safe and save on stamp duty ?

At last! I'll be able to afford a 6 bed place I've had my eye on in Cheyne Walk.:money:

Seriously though, it is about time AML (anti-money laundering) laws were applied to Estate Agencies properly. Well done to Mr Cameron.

stator

There are so many stupid hoops to jump through for a normal single citizen to buy a house and yet anyone with money can just set up a few companies and whizz their way around them.
They should ban ownership of property in the UK from any company that doesn't disclose it's full ownership structure, recursively including all companies that own it, etc. Banning any companies registered in countries that don't give ou this information.

CLAPTON

stator wrote: »

There are so many stupid hoops to jump through for a normal single citizen to buy a house and yet anyone with money can just set up a few companies and whizz their way around them.
They should ban ownership of property in the UK from any company that doesn't disclose it's full ownership structure, recursively including all companies that own it, etc. Banning any companies registered in countries that don't give ou this information.

it would seem to me that for any normal single citizen with enough money can whizz their way to house ownership.

purch

I am sure that if there was any actual proof that Laundered Money was used to buy any property it could be dealt with.

You will be able to prove that property was bought by person/persons who did not meet the required criteria, but actually proving anything else will be much more difficult, and if it were possible then these cases would be prosecuted.

Otherwise this is all made up nonsense.

Generali

purch wrote: »

I am sure that if there was any actual proof that Laundered Money was used to buy any property it could be dealt with.

You will be able to prove that property was bought by person/persons who did not meet the required criteria, but actually proving anything else will be much more difficult, and if it were possible then these cases would be prosecuted.

Otherwise this is all made up nonsense.

Surely you didn't sleep through all of those post-lunch compliance talks about money laundering purch? If you suspect someone of trying to launder money you have to report them to your AML Officer otherwise you have committed a crime with a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine and up to 14 years in Sing Sing.

purch

Generali wrote: »

Surely you didn't sleep through all of those post-lunch compliance talks about money laundering purch?

I have a very hazy memory of numerous afternoons during those days.

Having to ask the brokers what I did yesterday was always slightly embarrassing.

Loughton_Monkey

Before any money can be "laundered", it must have been acquired by some sort of crime. Either that crime has been reported (and thus given due attention and investigation by the appropriate authorities) or unreported (and thus not even known by appropriate authorities).

How rational is it, therefore, to assume that if the authorities cannot 'deal' with the crime, or not even know about it, that some lowly estate agent, bank clerk, or art dealer in a foreign land can have an inkling?

The number of 'legitimate' millionaires these days is HUGE, what with the new economic freedoms in China and Russia, together with the 'wizz-kid' teenage app developers all over the world....

Replace Money Laundering legislation by some form of incentive like a reward of X% of the 'dirty money'. A little bit like the police in the old days dropping the odd fiver in front of the toe-rag down the local East End pub to grass up whoever did the latest bank job. Whatever happened to 'The Sweeney'?

Who knows? We might get in-the-know property developers being able to grass up a few candidates......

[idea for new TV series.... "The Beeny"....]

stator

CLAPTON wrote: »

it would seem to me that for any normal single citizen with enough money can whizz their way to house ownership.

Not sure what you're talking about there but when you've been saving up for 10 years using about twenty different savings accounts (to get decent rates), trying to show the solicitor where your money came from can be a bit a bit of a hassle.

CLAPTON

stator wrote: »

Not sure what you're talking about there but when you've been saving up for 10 years using about twenty different savings accounts (to get decent rates), trying to show the solicitor where your money came from can be a bit a bit of a hassle.

rubbish

.....................

antrobus

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

....How rational is it, therefore, to assume that if the authorities cannot 'deal' with the crime, or not even know about it, that some lowly estate agent, bank clerk, or art dealer in a foreign land can have an inkling?.....

That's a reasonable point. Some citizen of Sovietistan who is the verifiable owner of some hugely profitable local enterprise, might establish a subsidiary company in some perfectly respectable jurisdiction, and invest in a London property, It might be the case that he is really the third cousin of the president of Sovietistan, and that the profitability of his business is entirely based on some sweetheart government contracts. A subsequent, and different president of Sovietistan, might declare that it was all a fraud on the Sovietistanis, and thus the money invested in said London property was dirty. But it's difficult to see how anybody could have known.