London 13 Feb (ANA) - A quarter of property in England and Wales owned by overseas firms is held by entities registered in the British Virgin Islands, BBC analysis has found.

 

The Caribbean archipelago is the official home of companies that own 23,000 properties - more than any other country. They are owned by 11,700 firms registered in the overseas territory.

 

The finding emerged from BBC analysis conducted of Land Registry data on overseas property ownership. The research found there are around 97,000 properties in England and Wales held by overseas firms, as of January 2018.

 

It adds to concerns that companies registered in British-controlled tax havens have been used to avoid tax. Map built by Carto. If you can't see the map, please click here to open the same story on the BBC News website.

 

Note: Property locations are approximate based on the centre point of the postcode they fall into. As such they have been removed when the map is zoomed to the most detailed levels. Ownership information like the company name and country refer to the ultimate owner of the property, not necessarily the person or company that may rent or occupy the property.

 

Close behind the British Virgin Islands (BVI), which has a population of just 30,600, are Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Of the properties owned by overseas companies in England and Wales, two thirds are registered to firms in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

 

Many foreign UK property owners are also officially headquartered in Hong Kong, Panama and Ireland.  The analysis provides a new picture of ownership of property by overseas companies in England and Wales following a decision last November to make the database public and free to access.

 

It found:

 

Close to half (44%) of all properties owned by overseas companies in England and Wales are located in London

More than one in ten (11,500) properties owned by overseas companies in England and Wales are located in the City of Westminster

More than 6,000 properties owned by foreign companies are in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea.(ANA)

FA/ANA/13 February 2018-------