Quiet UK town becomes unexpected center of multi-billion offshore property deals
British tax havens channel £6bn into UK real-estate market through hidden companies. Peaceful town of Wokingham shows up as top-5 destination for mysterious property purchases from offshore zones
The peaceful town of Wokingham has become an unlikely hub for offshore money flowing into UK property market: five high-end estates worth £146m were bought using complex offshore structures (making it around £30m per property while local houses cost about £615‚044)
British Virgin Islands and other tax havens sent nearly £6bn to buy UK properties in past 8 years. Most funds - over 90 percent - came through BVI companies that dont reveal their real owners. These offshore structures bought 494 properties across Britain focusing mainly on London areas
The research shows interesting money-flow patterns:
- Cities of London and Westminster: £3.6bn for 224 properties
- Kensington and Bayswater: £1.1bn for 83 properties
- Local areas outside London got big deals too
- Single Bristol office building: £34.7m purchase
MP Joe Powell and other parliament members wrote to Foreign Secretary about this issue. They point out that hidden offshore money affects housing market badly. While some territories like Monserrat opened their company registers; BVI and Cayman Islands still keep owners secret
HMRC tax-collection data suggests £300m gap from offshore assets but Sir Jim Harra says real numbers are much bigger. Margot Mollat from Transparency International UK suggests: “Corporate secrecy in UKʼs Overseas Territories helps global-scale money laundering; we need EU-style rules for access to ownership info“
Corporate secrecy in the UKʼs Overseas Territories plays a central role in enabling corruption money laundering and the evasion of tax
