Yes, lets make it even easier for the government to seize assets from people, what could possibly go wrong?
The amount of blind trust in the probity & wisdom of state institutions on display here is breathtaking, particularly after the worldwide statist clown show of the last two years.
And keep in mind, socialists think all money is dirty money.
Brian Villanueva
2 years ago
I’m still appalled that the UK and USA apparently think it’s acceptable to seize peoples’ assets simply because they’re Russian and rich. Do we really want to go down this road? This is what Hugo Chavez did. This is what socialists everywhere have done. Making property rights insecure doesn’t end well. Of course, Justin Trudeau is busy collapsing his citizens faith in the Canadian banking system, so maybe this is just the next step.
Yes, forget the rule of law – just so that hot money can be diverted into some less traceable asset like art or NFTs, gold, bitcoin or whatever the ingenuity of the money men can devise.
I would say that yes we do want to go down this road! meanwhile, I can’t see how that revealing who owns property makes ‘property rights insecure’ – are you serious? If anything transparency of ownership makes them more secure!
If I’m reading BV’s comment correctly, it’s the confiscation of assets that causes uncertainty (and is a slippery slope). Not openness and transparency about ownership, which I at least can see no argument against.
The argument against it is precisely that it makes it easier for capricious state institutions to decide whose stuff they want to appropriate today. Got unpopular views? Well Justin Trudeau recently demonstrated what states can do to your property rights if they don’t like you.
Thank you – I think your various comments have persuaded me, but I think the laundering of dirty money through the London property market is a specific issue needing to be addressed.
Cyprus did it in 2012, seized assets in banks over 100000 euro. The EU response was to say, it doesnt matter, because the depositers were mostly Russian.
On whose say-so will they merit that attribution? Yours? Or should we just “take the money first, ask questions later, and only if we have to, which we don’t, because we’re the government”?
It’s not about seizing assets but simply requiring people to say where they got the funds to buy those assets. Obviously not all rich Russians are gangsters, crooks or cronies of Putin but if they are not they can tell us how they made their money. With the collapse of the Soviet Union there was wholesale thief of assets belonging to former state enterprises much of that money found its way to London. It’s destabilised and corrupted financial institutions, the legal system and governments. Ruthless action is justified to stop Putin having access to anything here to fund his aggression.
Wilfred Davis
2 years ago
When William I ordered his Great Survey, it was an act of domination — of taking control of a conquered land. A modern-day Domesday Book would be the precise opposite: a means by which we take back control of our own country.
We take back control?
A modern-day Domesday book would be very much the same as the old one: a register whose purpose is possession, taxation, and control.
Why imagine that the keepers of this register will be any more benign than William the Conqueror? (Clue in the name.)
Even in liberal democracies, registers of such things as bank accounts or motor insurance can be swiftly used against the people. Ask the Canadian truckers about that nice Mr Trudeau.
Exactly so. Anyone who thinks the Domeday book was positive example of state action either does not know what they were actually for, or has just told you everything you need to know about their alarming political views.
Perry de Havilland
2 years ago
Oh and please recall that the Domesday book(s) were drawn up so that the government (my rapacious ancestors actually) were looking to find out who owned what so the spoils could be divided up amongst the Norman ruling class.
AC Harper
2 years ago
Alternatively you could argue that the lack of ‘transparency’ is the result of people trying to avoid excessive regulation… just as people and firms avoid paying taxes if they may.
More and more regulation is the default position of the managerial class. There’s rarely a realistic option of reducing regulation or considering other options.
The Bonfire of the QUANGOs died because too many people wanted their patronage and too much regulation required tame bodies to police it.
Does anyone ask if a smaller base of regulations might not be of more benefit than the mounds of paperwork and clerical expense of trying to avoid vague ‘bad things’?
Alright Milton Friedman, what is all this “regulation” that owning land involves??? There’s far more paperwork involved in hiding it away through offshore trusts.
John K
2 years ago
There are several different and largely unconnected issues caught up in this.
One is the ownership of farmland and eligibility for taxpayer subsidies. More than a century ago the Government collected and published a register of everyone who owned more than an acre in England. The landowning lobbies were not happy that hoi polloi could find out how much they owned, and the exercise has never been repeated. But personally I see no reason why not, maybe with a larger minimum reporting threshold.
A second is the ownership and options over potential and actual development land. That is a more difficult issue, as it is commercially valuable information.
The third is the ownership of large houses and other property by rich people hiding behind opaque companies and similar vehicles. I see no reason, other than the political interests of successive governments, why this has been allowed to mushroom. e.g. walk across Vauxhall Bridge and most of the green glass apartments are clearly empty, stores of wealth for rich foreigners.
They need completely different approaches.
Last edited 2 years ago by John K
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
Here in the far East just now the net is full of ads for London property. A £1m buy to rent is considered cheap as a way of investing capital despite recent stamp duty rises for overseas buyers. Let’s put it this way, this area is about to raise tax on supercars from eyewatering to stratospheric. The official who suggested it says it’ll make no difference. Bentley and Rolls sold over a hundred cars each with already massive taxes on top over the last week in advance. Every little helps.
Last edited 2 years ago by Terence Fitch
James Anthony Seyforth
2 years ago
It’s simple keep track of what’s bought and who buys it. If a name isn’t given refuse to sell it under a new law, a name has to be put to the building and that person must be checked for criminal or nefarious activities if they are not British. Especially if they may originate from potential enemy territory and they can’t be validated through basic checks like credit check etc.
Anna Bramwell
2 years ago
Land registration in France was complete and on line in the early ‘90s.
Charles Hedges
2 years ago
It comes down to power and the ability of foreign money to influence politics which can be detrimental to British people. Knowledge is power. Foreigners buy property because of the security built up since Alfred the Great. Foreigners do not contribute to the full cost of their security; they have not shed blood for it. I suggest all property is either owned by British people or by companies registered with owners listed which has to be named persons with a contact address. Those not domiciled for tax purposes should be taxed at 5% per annum of the value of purchase price with re-valuation every five years on top of council tax. All foreigners should sign a document that a condition of living here is that they never undertake detrimental actions against Britain.
A person may pay rent to live in one’s home but that does not allow them to damage it or persons also living there.
David McDowell
2 years ago
Quite right too.
Jerry Carroll
2 years ago
Bureaucratic torpor or palms are being greased, take your choice.
Yes, lets make it even easier for the government to seize assets from people, what could possibly go wrong?
The amount of blind trust in the probity & wisdom of state institutions on display here is breathtaking, particularly after the worldwide statist clown show of the last two years.
And keep in mind, socialists think all money is dirty money.
I’m still appalled that the UK and USA apparently think it’s acceptable to seize peoples’ assets simply because they’re Russian and rich. Do we really want to go down this road? This is what Hugo Chavez did. This is what socialists everywhere have done. Making property rights insecure doesn’t end well. Of course, Justin Trudeau is busy collapsing his citizens faith in the Canadian banking system, so maybe this is just the next step.
Yes, forget the rule of law – just so that hot money can be diverted into some less traceable asset like art or NFTs, gold, bitcoin or whatever the ingenuity of the money men can devise.
I would say that yes we do want to go down this road! meanwhile, I can’t see how that revealing who owns property makes ‘property rights insecure’ – are you serious? If anything transparency of ownership makes them more secure!
If I’m reading BV’s comment correctly, it’s the confiscation of assets that causes uncertainty (and is a slippery slope). Not openness and transparency about ownership, which I at least can see no argument against.
The argument against it is precisely that it makes it easier for capricious state institutions to decide whose stuff they want to appropriate today. Got unpopular views? Well Justin Trudeau recently demonstrated what states can do to your property rights if they don’t like you.
Not to think 9f GoFundMe.
Thank you – I think your various comments have persuaded me, but I think the laundering of dirty money through the London property market is a specific issue needing to be addressed.
Confiscation of private property is in Justin Trudeau’s DNA if you know what I mean. *Wink*
In addition, groups like BLM and Antifa can find out where you can live with this “transparency” and make your life miserable
Cyprus did it in 2012, seized assets in banks over 100000 euro. The EU response was to say, it doesnt matter, because the depositers were mostly Russian.
How about if they’re Russian, rich, *and* criminal instruments of a dictatorship that is threatening us with nuclear holocaust?
On whose say-so will they merit that attribution? Yours? Or should we just “take the money first, ask questions later, and only if we have to, which we don’t, because we’re the government”?
It’s not about seizing assets but simply requiring people to say where they got the funds to buy those assets. Obviously not all rich Russians are gangsters, crooks or cronies of Putin but if they are not they can tell us how they made their money. With the collapse of the Soviet Union there was wholesale thief of assets belonging to former state enterprises much of that money found its way to London. It’s destabilised and corrupted financial institutions, the legal system and governments. Ruthless action is justified to stop Putin having access to anything here to fund his aggression.
We take back control?
A modern-day Domesday book would be very much the same as the old one: a register whose purpose is possession, taxation, and control.
Why imagine that the keepers of this register will be any more benign than William the Conqueror? (Clue in the name.)
Even in liberal democracies, registers of such things as bank accounts or motor insurance can be swiftly used against the people. Ask the Canadian truckers about that nice Mr Trudeau.
Exactly so. Anyone who thinks the Domeday book was positive example of state action either does not know what they were actually for, or has just told you everything you need to know about their alarming political views.
Oh and please recall that the Domesday book(s) were drawn up so that the government (my rapacious ancestors actually) were looking to find out who owned what so the spoils could be divided up amongst the Norman ruling class.
Alternatively you could argue that the lack of ‘transparency’ is the result of people trying to avoid excessive regulation… just as people and firms avoid paying taxes if they may.
More and more regulation is the default position of the managerial class. There’s rarely a realistic option of reducing regulation or considering other options.
The Bonfire of the QUANGOs died because too many people wanted their patronage and too much regulation required tame bodies to police it.
Does anyone ask if a smaller base of regulations might not be of more benefit than the mounds of paperwork and clerical expense of trying to avoid vague ‘bad things’?
Alright Milton Friedman, what is all this “regulation” that owning land involves??? There’s far more paperwork involved in hiding it away through offshore trusts.
There are several different and largely unconnected issues caught up in this.
One is the ownership of farmland and eligibility for taxpayer subsidies. More than a century ago the Government collected and published a register of everyone who owned more than an acre in England. The landowning lobbies were not happy that hoi polloi could find out how much they owned, and the exercise has never been repeated. But personally I see no reason why not, maybe with a larger minimum reporting threshold.
A second is the ownership and options over potential and actual development land. That is a more difficult issue, as it is commercially valuable information.
The third is the ownership of large houses and other property by rich people hiding behind opaque companies and similar vehicles. I see no reason, other than the political interests of successive governments, why this has been allowed to mushroom. e.g. walk across Vauxhall Bridge and most of the green glass apartments are clearly empty, stores of wealth for rich foreigners.
They need completely different approaches.
Here in the far East just now the net is full of ads for London property. A £1m buy to rent is considered cheap as a way of investing capital despite recent stamp duty rises for overseas buyers. Let’s put it this way, this area is about to raise tax on supercars from eyewatering to stratospheric. The official who suggested it says it’ll make no difference. Bentley and Rolls sold over a hundred cars each with already massive taxes on top over the last week in advance. Every little helps.
It’s simple keep track of what’s bought and who buys it. If a name isn’t given refuse to sell it under a new law, a name has to be put to the building and that person must be checked for criminal or nefarious activities if they are not British. Especially if they may originate from potential enemy territory and they can’t be validated through basic checks like credit check etc.
Land registration in France was complete and on line in the early ‘90s.
It comes down to power and the ability of foreign money to influence politics which can be detrimental to British people. Knowledge is power. Foreigners buy property because of the security built up since Alfred the Great. Foreigners do not contribute to the full cost of their security; they have not shed blood for it. I suggest all property is either owned by British people or by companies registered with owners listed which has to be named persons with a contact address. Those not domiciled for tax purposes should be taxed at 5% per annum of the value of purchase price with re-valuation every five years on top of council tax. All foreigners should sign a document that a condition of living here is that they never undertake detrimental actions against Britain.
A person may pay rent to live in one’s home but that does not allow them to damage it or persons also living there.
Quite right too.
Bureaucratic torpor or palms are being greased, take your choice.
Is Scotland way ahead on this?
http://whoownsscotland.org.uk/geo/index.htm#zoom=6&lat=56.78197&lon=-4.9&layers=B0T