Normal investment processes for buying up properties in Liverpool ‘have not applied’, according to a city councillor.
Last week, the ECHO revealed that the city comes second out of all borough areas across England and Wales for Land Registry titles registered to individuals with an overseas address. The data came to light after Freedom of Information requests collated by the Centre for Public Data.
The surprising data found that as of August 2021, there were 7,925 properties in the Liverpool Council area owned by an overseas individual. The London borough of Westminster was the only borough to have more.
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There is a particular interest in Russian-owned property in the country at the moment after a number of figures linked to Vladimir Putin’s regime have been sanctioned and had their UK property and business interests frozen since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. The most high profile of these figures is Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, whose sanctioning has sent the club into crisis.
The Centre for Public Data found that Liverpool also came second in the country when it came to looking specifically at Russian-owned property in England and Wales. With Westminster once again the only borough in England and Wales to register a higher figure.
The data shows that as of August 2021, there were 72 properties in the city with a correspondence address in Russia, a number that has risen sharply over the past decade. In January 2010, there were zero Liverpool properties registered to individuals with a Russian address – rising to 72 by last summer. There is nothing to suggest any of these property owners have any links to the Putin regime.
Liverpool has had well-documented issues with property schemes and investments for years now. The city is littered with stalled investments that have left investors – many from overseas – out of pocket. The issues are currently being investigated as part of Merseyside Police’s Operation Aloft and were a key feature of last year’s damning government inspection of the city council.
Responding to the new data, Liverpool’s opposition leader Cllr Richard Kemp, who has regularly spoken out about Liverpool’s property problems, said: “Having foreign investment in property or businesses in Liverpool is, in principle, a good thing. Many of the properties will have been bought in good faith by good people. However, the normal investment processes for the purchase and sale of property in Liverpool have simply not applied.”
He pointed to issues with the so-called ‘fractional investment’ model of property investing – where a building project is funded by selling flats off-plan in advance before a development is built. This has become a common way of developing in Liverpool.
Cllr Kemp said: “The selling of fractional investment, property bonds and overseas borrowing with high interest rates to try and complete failing investments have led to 35 major property developments being stalled with the strong likelihood that most of them will never be completed.
“We know that Operation Aloft which is a joint operation between the Merseyside Force and the national Matrix operation has been investigating the Liverpool property scene and the possible corruption within Liverpool Council which enabled it to operate. It is known that property investment is often seen by many as a way of laundering dirty money.”
Cllr Kemp said the data revealed by the ECHO and the Centre for Public Data is just the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ He added: “Much more has been invested and lost within the stalled developments so the source of the investment money has not been registered with the Land Registry because the transaction has never been completed and in most places will not be.
“I would urge the Police as part of Operation Aloft to look at all the investors in the failed schemes as well as the completed ones. The details of these creditors must be known to the company administrators as part of the liquidation process”.
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