Transparency of land ownership involving trusts
Published 27 December 2023
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Scope of the consultation
Topic of this consultation:
The government is consulting on the transparency of land ownership when trusts are involved in the ownership structure.
Scope of this consultation:
This consultation seeks views on improving transparency of land ownership involving trusts. It seeks specific views on options to widen access to trust information held on the Register of Overseas Entities (ROE). It also seeks general views on how ownership of land involving trusts can be made more transparent. To help inform decisions on balancing the making of information available and any legitimate concerns in sharing that information publicly, the consultation seeks views on what data would be most useful and why.
Geographical scope:
The ROE and the Trusts Registration Service (TRS) both apply UK-wide. Land registration, however, is a devolved power, so references to land registration law and HM Land Registry (HMLR) only apply to England and Wales.
Impact assessment:
This consultation does not propose any policy solutions. Any decisions made in relation to matters raised in this consultation will be accompanied by a full impact assessment.
Basic Information
Body/bodies responsible for the consultation:
This consultation is published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), on behalf of and jointly with His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT), His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT).
Duration:
This consultation will last for 8 weeks from 27 December 2023 and closes on 21 February 2024.
Enquiries:
For any enquiries about the consultation please contact: trusttransparency@levellingup.gov.uk
How to respond:
You may respond by completing an online survey.
Alternatively, you can email your response to the questions in this consultation to trusttransparency@levellingup.gov.uk.
If you are responding by email, please make it clear to which questions you are responding.
When you reply, it would be very useful if you confirm whether you are replying as an individual or submitting an official response on behalf of an organisation and include:
- your name,
- your position (if applicable),
- the name of organisation (if applicable),
- an address (including post-code),
- an email address, and
- a contact telephone number
Ministerial foreword
Who really owns land and property matters. It matters for how and where we build our homes, grow our food, power our country and restore our natural capital. Transparency about land ownership is therefore essential to make our society work effectively. In its absence, injustices, corruption and crime flourish.
Since 2010, the United Kingdom has taken steps to make our business environment more transparent.
The People with Significant Control register, set up in 2016 by Companies House, was the first of its kind, requiring UK companies and other legal entities to identify who controls and influences them.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we stepped up our efforts again to drive dirty money out of the UK. The Economic Crime Act 2022 and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 strengthened our national reputation as a place where legitimate businesses can thrive and created the Register of Overseas Entities - a list of the true owners of offshore companies that own UK land.
We have also made progress in tackling the abuse of trust structures. The Trust Registration Service in 2017 created the first register of beneficial ownership of trusts with UK links, clamping down on money laundering and terrorist financing.
All of this is progress, much of it is world leading, but our focus so far has been about transparency over companies and entities, rather than the actual land and property that they hold and control.
Yet land is the most valuable asset in our economy, accounting for over 60% of the UK’s net worth. Churchill called it ‘by far the greatest of monopolies’ and for too long we’ve turned a blind eye to who really controls it.
There is therefore unquestionable public interest in who really owns land and property. In my capacity as Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, I have seen the social injustices that arise when the true owners of land and property cannot be identified - whether that is anonymous landlords whom tenants cannot contact in an emergency; shady freeholders refusing to fix dangerous buildings and extorting unreasonable service charges from leaseholders; parcels of land being traded like shares, inflating prices and locking small builders out of the land market; or the blight of our capital city where swathes of desirable homes sit empty with secretive offshore trusts or shell companies as their ultimate owners.
One of the ways that land ownership has been traditionally obscured is through trust arrangements. Trusts can be used for wholly legitimate reasons. But they can, and are, created with deliberately labyrinthine structures to obscure the ownership of assets and make it easier for corrupt individuals to operate.
This consultation aims to lift the veil of secrecy that is currently afforded to those land-holding trusts, building on the steps we have already taken. We seek views on options to improve the transparency of those trusts and how this can be done sensitively, with the right safeguards.
Our approach will be guided by 2 main principles: the government must know who really owns and controls UK land and property, and as much of that information as possible should be public by default. There are some, with things to hide, that will fear accountability. We must not enable them. At the same time, I recognise the entirely legitimate concerns some may have, and I want to strike the right balance between transparency and privacy. I welcome the insights of all respondents and look forward to reflecting upon the widest possible range of responses.
Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Executive summary
1. Transparency around who owns and controls land is a vital aspect of our land market. People buying land need to know who they are buying it from and there needs to be a way to identify people who attempt to hide their ownership of property for criminal purposes. Although land may be owned by individuals, companies, trusts or other entities, all citizens have a collective interest in ensuring that land is used properly and for the benefit of society.
2. This government’s ambition is that any person with an interest in land should, if they need to, be able to find out not just who owns land, but who can control or derive economic benefit from it. This information is necessary to resolve many housing sector issues, as well as to assist the fight against illicit finance and corruption in the UK housing market. It should be simple to make searches in relation to a piece of land and find all this information; or, indeed, in relation to a person, company or trust and find all the land they have control over or derive benefit from.
3. Under our current system, HMLR records on a public register the legal owners of land. It does not, however, record the details of anyone behind the legal owner who may be able to control, or derive economic benefit from, that land. If the legal owner is a company or a trustee, there is no way of kn0owing from the land registry who is behind it.
4. The government already keeps registers that do contain information about those behind such companies or trusts, including the Register of People with Significant Control over companies (PSC), the ROE and the TRS. These registers and their functions are discussed in more detail below. All 3, however, were established for purposes unrelated to land ownership and as such, for reasons described below, do not always routinely record sufficient information to be able to match ownership to land. Additionally, all 3 registers currently keep information about trusts out of public view, though this information is available to law enforcement agencies.
5. In light of this, more needs to be done achieve the government’s land transparency ambitions. The government’s view is that lack of open public access to trust beneficial ownership information, especially relating to land ownership, represents an unacceptable gap in the government’s transparency measures. This consultation therefore considers the case for improving transparency over trusts with an interest in land. There is a particular focus on the Register of Overseas Entities, given the higher risks for money laundering that have been judged to be associated with such entities, but the government is also keen to understand the extent to which transparency obligations should be extended to any trust that is involved in the ownership of UK land.
6. The government has recently taken new powers through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 (LURA 2023) to gather and publish more information about the ownership and control of land. The way these powers can be used is being considered in the context of the current systems and how they interact. The use of these powers is not discussed in this consultation, but instead it focuses on releasing the transparency barriers that currently exist in relation to land where a trust structure is involved. This consultation is a necessary first step on the road to the government’s transparency ambitions and will feed into consideration of the options to make land ownership more transparent.
Case for change
7. Throughout this consultation, the government is approaching the question of trust transparency in relation to 3 overriding principles:
1) Greater transparency of land ownership where trusts are involved is a matter of public interest – as a finite and valuable resource, all citizens have a collective interest in ensuring that land is used properly and for the benefit of society. Visibility of ownership is the first step in ensuring public engagement in land use can happen, such as through the planning system.
2) Greater transparency will support a housing market that better delivers for the public – for example, ensuring remediation liability for high-rise buildings can be resolved.
3) Transparent ownership can help with tackling illicit finance and corruption – transactions made using offshore corporate structures or offshore trusts in the UK property sector have been identified as posing a higher risk of money laundering, according to the National Risk Assessment of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing 2020.
Enhancing transparency of trust information available on the Register of Overseas Entities
8. In addition to other new powers relating to the ROE (discussed in chapter 2), the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 gives the government power to enable applications to be made for access to trust information which is currently supressed from publication under certain circumstances. The government will make regulations using this power in the next few months, regardless of the outcome of this consultation.
9. This consultation goes further than this power and considers expanding access to information about trusts held on the ROE. It seeks views on the following 3 options to enhance transparency of trusts information held on the ROE:
1) Trust information publicly available by default, except for protected information – information collected about trusts on ROE would no longer be suppressed from public inspection.
2) Partial information made publicly available by default – to address any real or perceived risks of making all information about trusts publicly accessible by default.
3) No change in public availability – the current system would remain, although with the added new powers mentioned in paragraph 8 above.
Increasing transparency of land-owning trusts
10. In addition to the specific proposals relating to the ROE, the government is also interested to hear views on the extent to which the transparency of land held by trusts not associated with ROE entities could be improved. This consultation asks for views on any such future land transparency system, considering 5 options for treating information about trusts with an interest in UK land:
1) Retain existing practices relating to trusts information access – this option keeps the status quo in respect to trust information access.
2) Increased transparency of non-UK trusts holding UK land – this option would extend the principles for transparency of information on the ROE to information held elsewhere but only where they relate to non-UK trusts. This recognises the increased risk, according to the National Risk Assessment of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing 2020, judged to be posed by land owned by overseas trusts and entities.
3) Publish the minimum information necessary to meet the 3 overriding principles and retain current privacy practices for all other data – some trust information would be made available for public inspection where that trust is involved in land ownership, which may be sufficient to reassure those interested in pieces of land. Further information would be accessible to law enforcement agencies, as is the case now.
4) Publish the minimum information necessary to meet the 3 overriding principles and increase access to further information through an expanded ‘legitimate interest’ test – this would allow access to retained information on application and subject to a new ‘legitimate interest’ test in relation to land. The government could define who would have such a ‘legitimate interest’, such as a person living on the land in question.
5) Publish all information collected about trusts by default – the maximalist approach would be to make all information on trusts holding land public by default.
Introduction
11. This introductory section sets out how land, company and trust ownership is currently recorded, to highlight where there may be potential gaps in transparency of land ownership.
12. The public interest in who owns land has been understood since the 1850s, when proposals to register land in England were first floated. This culminated in the Land Registry Act of 1862, which established HMLR, with the remit of giving certainty to the title of estates. HMLR still records these titles in England and Wales today, with separate land registries held by Registers of Scotland and Land and Property Services in Northern Ireland providing a near complete record of land ownership in the UK.
13. There are several reasons for this public interest. For example, it is important to know who owns land so that it can be bought and sold with confidence – if you want to buy something, you must know who owns it, and what if any conditions would apply if you owned it yourself. The primary function of HMLR’s Register of Title (and, indeed, the equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland) is to facilitate this process, recording those who have the right to convey land, but also any rights or burdens attached to that land or constraints on its disposal by the current proprietor. This gives confidence to a purchaser that when they buy the land, they have satisfied all the requirements to become the owner. The publicly accessible nature of this register has additional benefits, such as developers identifying the owners of land which could be used for housebuilding.
Legal ownership vs beneficial ownership
14. When reference is made to the owners of land, this usually means the ‘legal owners’ of a freehold or leasehold. These are the persons shown by HMLR as the proprietors of the legal title (see paragraphs 19-23 below for more detail about legal ownership, freehold and leasehold). Legal owners have a range of statutory powers and responsibilities relating to land. Prospective purchasers and other interested parties can safely assume that the legal owners can sell or otherwise dispose of the land and that they can, for almost all purposes, be treated as the responsible landowners.
15. However, arrangements can be entered into whereby another person controls the legal owner or is entitled to benefit from the land in some way. This may include being able to occupy it, receive from the legal owner any rental income, or a proportion of the proceeds on a sale. People who may be able to control the legal owner and/or the use of the land, or derive economic benefit from it, or both, are sometimes referred to as the ‘beneficial owner(s)’ of land.
16. One such arrangement is the use of a corporate entity, such as a company, which can be registered as the legal owner of land. The entity may be based in the UK or overseas, and many organisations and private individuals have historically used overseas entities to hold land for legitimate commercial reasons, or for reasons relating to privacy and/or tax arrangements. The people who control or influence a corporate body may be referred to as the ‘beneficial owner’ of that company, although in the UK this term is only applied to overseas entities; those who have this influence over UK companies are referred to as ‘People with Significant Control’ (see paragraphs 24-27 below for more detail about company ownership records).
17. Another arrangement involves the use of trusts, which is simply a way of managing assets (such as money or land) for people. A common arrangement might be where a person (known as the ‘settlor’) puts or ‘settles’ assets into a trust for the benefit of another person or people (the ‘beneficiaries’) and appoints a person or people (‘trustees’) to manage the assets on behalf of the beneficiaries. By definition, the beneficiaries would be considered the ‘beneficial owners’ of any assets held by a trust, although Regulation 6 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 extends the definition of a ‘beneficial owner’ of a trust to include the settlors, trustees and any individual who has control over the trust.
18. There are lots of different kinds of trust. Trust arrangements may be expressly created by a settlor, often in a formal legal document, known as an ‘express trust’, but this is not always the case; trusts that are not expressly created by a settlor are known as ‘implied trusts’. The majority of trusts of land recorded by HMLR are co-ownership trusts (spouses or partners owning the family home together), which may be express or implied trusts – if they are implied, the nature of the trust may only become apparent when decided by a court of law, such as during a divorce settlement.
19. Trustees may have very little control over the assets held in trust and may only be required to transfer assets to the beneficiaries (known as a ‘bare trust’), or trustees may have the discretion to make certain decisions about the use of the assets held (a ‘discretionary trust’). A particular example of a bare trust is often used in land ownership, where a person uses a ‘nominee’ to act as legal owner of land on their behalf, while the person maintains absolute entitlement to the land and can derive any income from it (this arrangement may be an express or an implied trust).
20. These are only a few examples of different types of trusts and the differences between them are an important consideration for any future land transparency system, to balance between transparency and privacy. This is, however, outside the scope of this consultation and will be considered carefully, in light of responses to this consultation, as part of ongoing policy development.
How land ownership is currently recorded
21. Land registration is a devolved power in Scotland and Northern Ireland, who each have their own land registration systems. The following paragraphs specifically relate to land ownership in England and Wales.
22. Land law is based on the principle that ultimately all land is owned by the Crown. The interests that are regarded as ‘land ownership’ are called legal estates: freehold, which lasts indefinitely, and leasehold, which lasts for a defined period.
23. The Register of Title (commonly referred to as the Land Register), maintained by HMLR, records the proprietors or ‘legal owners’ of legal estates and of the rights and burdens that are associated with those estates. Its primary purpose is to enable easy conveyancing; someone wishing to acquire the estate can find out from the register everything they need to know. For this reason, the Register of Title deliberately does not record any corporate, trust or other ownership structures behind the curtain of legal ownership, which may confuse the conveyancing process. This is known as the ‘curtain principle’ and is a fundamental pillar of the Register of Title.
24. As well as the rights and burdens of a legal estate itself, there may be other obligations that are personal to the current proprietor. If these make it unlawful for them to deal with the estate in a particular way, a restriction can be entered in the register to prevent them doing so. Additionally, where the proprietor holds a legal estate on behalf of someone else as part of a trust, the terms of that trust may continue to affect the legal estate even if the proprietors change, with the incoming proprietor effectively becoming the new trustee. When trustees are registered as proprietors of a legal estate, HMLR will generally enter a restriction in the register if necessary to ensure that when the land is conveyed, the correct procedures are followed to transfer full proprietorship, without the influence of the trust. Depending on who is registered as the legal owner, the presence of this restriction may be the only way to identify that a legal estate is owned on trust.
25. As noted above, the legal estate may be registered in the name of a company or the trustees of a trust and the Register of Title deliberately does not look beyond these names. In such cases, to understand who may be controlling or deriving economic benefit from the estate in England and Wales, other registers would have to be consulted.
26. Registers of Scotland (RoS) keeps public registers of land, property, and other legal documents in Scotland. The Land Register of Scotland is their main register, which records ownership of land and property in Scotland. It is a publicly accessible register of property rights which is underpinned by state guarantee. The Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land (RCI) is a RoS register, required by law, that was launched on 1 April 2022. The RCI shows who controls the decisions of owners or tenants (for more than 20 years) of land and property in Scotland, where this information may not be publicly transparent elsewhere. The RCI gives details of those that have influence or control over decisions about land and property, and their contact address.
27. In Northern Ireland, notice of a Trust shall not be entered on the Land Register. Trusts are kept off the title so that there is no indication that the land is subject to a trust. Trustees of land may be registered as full owners and neither the Registrar nor any person claiming a disposition for valuable consideration is affected by notice of any Trust contained in a document that may be lodged with the Registry. Beneficiaries under a Trust may choose to protect their interest in the land by registering an inhibition.
How company ownership and control information is currently recorded
28. The registers which hold information about companies, and any requirements to register with them, apply UK-wide. The following paragraphs, therefore, relate to all of the UK, including Scotland and Northern Ireland.
29. The Registrar of Companies keeps and publishes information about UK registered companies and similar legal entities. Its functions, as set out in the Companies Act, are delivered through Companies House, an executive agency of the Department for Business and Trade. Since 2016, the government has taken significant steps to increase transparency over these companies and similar entities by requiring the collection and publication of information about those who have significant influence and control over them. Such people, known as PSC are sometimes referred to as beneficial owners. It is possible for trusts or firms to meet the conditions of being a PSC of a company – in such cases, those who have influence or control over the trust or firm (such as the trustees) are also considered a PSC of the company.
30. Where the legal owner of land is a UK company or similar entity, information about the people controlling the company is therefore available from Companies House. Where the legal owner of land is an overseas company or other corporate entity, information about the people controlling the entity is held on a separate register, the ROE, also held by Companies House, which has been in operation since 2022. Those who meet the definitions for the ROE are known as ‘beneficial owners’ of the entity. It is important to note that information reported to and published by Companies House focuses on those who have influence and control over the companies themselves, not those who ultimately benefit from or control any land the company may own. These may be the same people, but that is not necessarily the case; for example, the trustees of a trust may have the control/influence over it, but not benefit from its assets, such as land.
31. As noted above, if a trust meets the definition of PSC (or beneficial owner for the ROE), all of the trustees of the trust are automatically classed as PSCs (or beneficial owners) and their information will be publicly shown on the record. In the case of the ROE, where a trustee is a registrable beneficial owner, further information about the trust must also be registered. This information is not publicly available, though it is fully accessible to law enforcement agencies and public authorities. New powers provided by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA 2023) will enable the government to make regulations to allow access by application to trust information held on the ROE and these regulations will be made next year (this is discussed further in Chapter 2 of this consultation). However, for UK companies, no further information about the trust is required to be collected by or reported to Companies House.
How trust information is currently recorded
32. As with companies, the register which hold information about trusts applies UK-wide. The following paragraphs, therefore, also relate to all of the UK, including Scotland and Northern Ireland.
33. The TRS is held by HMRC to increase the transparency of trust ownership for the purposes of combatting money laundering and countering terrorist finance, by providing a central register of the beneficial ownership of certain trusts. For TRS purposes, the ‘beneficial owner’ includes the trustees, settlors, beneficiaries, and any other individual who may have control over the trust.
34. Information held on TRS is available to law enforcement agencies to assist in their investigations. Since 1 September 2022, other individuals and organisations can also access TRS information in limited circumstances, provided they can demonstrate in their application a ‘legitimate interest’ in a trust they want information on for the purposes of investigating suspected money laundering and/or terrorist financing; or if the trust they want information on has a controlling interest in a company located outside of the UK and EEA. Outside these limited circumstances, this information is not available to the public.
Increasing transparency of land ownership involving trusts
35. The ownership structures described above are not mutually exclusive; companies can be owned by other companies, which in turn can be owned by other companies, and so on. Several companies could hold shares in a company holding land, making the true control or ownership diluted and obscure. A company could be owned by trustees on behalf of a beneficiary who has no control over the trust’s (and, therefore, the company’s) assets. Trustees can also own land themselves on behalf of beneficiaries, which themselves may be individuals, companies, or other trusts. Companies themselves can own land in trust, as nominees or as trustees.
36. In short, as seen in the examples below, it can be difficult to identify the person or persons receiving or entitled to receive economic benefit from land. The fact that any trust structures are not currently made publicly available on any register creates a barrier to understanding ownership for most of the general public.
37. Example 1: A corporate entity based overseas is the legal owner of land registered with HMLR. This entity’s information, including its beneficial owners, should be available on the ROE, held by Companies House. However, one of the beneficial owners of this overseas entity may be an offshore trust – in this case the information should be collected by ROE, but under current conditions that information would not be made available to the public.
- UK land
- Legal owner - overseas entity
- Beneficial owner of entity – offshore trust
- Beneficiaries of trust – recorded but not public
38. Example 2: Where the legal owner of land is a UK trust, the names of up to 4 trustees will be recorded by HMLR. Further information about the trust, including the beneficiaries, may be recorded on other government registers such as the TRS. However, if the names of the trustees are common ones, there could be multiple records on the TRS under the same name. It is also not uncommon for people to act as trustees for multiple trusts, so it may not be clear who the beneficiaries are even if the trustees can be accurately identified. More fundamentally, the TRS does not hold detailed information about land holdings, because this is not the purpose for which the register was created, nor for which information is collected. It therefore may not be possible to discover who is deriving economic benefit from this land.
- UK land
- Legal Owner – UK Trust
- Beneficiaries of UK trust – recorded but may not be discoverable
39. Increasing transparency over trusts involved in land ownership is a significant departure from longstanding policy. The lack of open public access to trust beneficial ownership information has, however, been raised by transparency groups with the suggestion that it represents a gap in the government’s transparency measures. Significant further scrutiny was given to trust transparency by Parliamentarians during the passage of the ECCTA 2023. The government agrees that there is a public interest and societal benefit in enhancing transparency of land ownership where land is held within a trust. To that end, during the passage of the ECCTA 2023, the government committed to consult on how the transparency of trust information can be improved.
40. Chapter 1 of this consultation considers the case for greater transparency over trusts owning land, and the principles the government is following in pursuit of this aim. Chapter 2 focuses on the ROE in detail and considers if the government can go further than the access by application it has already committed to during the passage of the ECCTA 2023. The government is also keen to understand the extent to which transparency obligations should be extended to any trust (including UK-based trusts) that holds UK land – chapter 3 of this consultation therefore explores the principles that the government should follow in pursuing this aim, especially in relation to the balance between transparency and the right to personal privacy. Annex A sets out a summary of the information that is currently held on HMLR, the ROE and the TRS.
Chapter 1: The case for change
41. The government would like to gather views on the premise of increasing transparency of trusts which own land. The government believes that there is a strong case for changing the current transparency arrangements of trust, specifically where land ownership is involved.
42. As set out in the introduction, the UK now has several registers that gather ownership information in relation to companies, trusts and land and are administered by different departments and agencies. This information is available to law enforcement agencies. The government has also made the information held on the TRS available to organisation and individuals where they can demonstrate they are investigating money laundering or terrorist financing, or where the trust has a controlling interest in a company outside of the UK and EEA. Regulations will also be made next year to make trust information held on the ROE available on application. The government has taken this approach to transparency to balance the right to privacy for those who operate trust structures for a variety of legitimate reasons, with greater public transparency afforded to higher risk trusts such as those based offshore.
43. Some parliamentarians and stakeholders have called for the government to go further with more public transparency for trusts that are part of overseas ownership structures. In their view, a greater reduction in risk will be attained if information about land-owning trusts is, in the main, public by default.
44. The government recognises that many trusts are set up for legitimate reasons, such as to hold property for a person who may be unable to hold it themselves, either because they are underage or have a disability that affects their capacity. In such circumstances, revealing the identity of the beneficial owners of land through trusts could put vulnerable people in harm’s way – they may, for example, be targeted to extort money from the trust.
45. The government is approaching the question of trust transparency in this consultation in relation to 3 overriding principles.
Greater transparency of land ownership where trusts are involved is a matter of legitimate public interest
46. As the Law Commission has previously stated, “the ownership, as well as the user, of land, a finite resource, carries social responsibilities and is a matter of legitimate public interest”. Although land may be owned by individuals, companies, trusts or other entities, all citizens have a collective interest in ensuring that land is used properly and for the benefit of society. Activities on land can cause effects which are felt by individuals outside of the land that is owned, such as air quality (the wider issue of land use is being considered through the development of government’s forthcoming Land Use Framework for England). The ownership and use of land matters to the communities surrounding it and there are many situations where it is reasonable for residents to understand the ownership of neighbouring land; unkept and dilapidated properties can affect the quality of communities or cause pest, damp and other problems for properties around them, for example.
47. At a wider level, misuse of land, such as use of residential units as retail space to avoid business rates, cannot be effectively policed without clear details of ownership. At present, when a trust is involved, there can be a barrier to obtaining information about the beneficial ownership of that land. The government therefore believes that there is a strong case for increasing transparency and access to information about trusts involved in the ownership of land.
48. There is a historical disparity between the information that is publicly available about most companies and trusts, primarily due to the differences between them as entities. Forming a company grants benefits to those involved, such as limited liability; these benefits are granted by the state, which can choose to reject an application to form a company. Owning a company is, therefore, not an inherently private affair. In exchange for receiving the protections and benefits offered by a company, it is reasonable for society to know who is benefitting.
49. Trusts, on the other hand, arguably are historically private affairs. The premise of a trust dates back at least to the Crusades, where Knights would leave their property in the hands of a trustee to manage it in their absence. Trusts are commonly used to manage private family affairs, so there is an argument that placing information about trusts in the public domain could infringe the privacy rights of trust beneficiaries. However, many of the arguments above about companies can also be applied to trusts, and vice versa. Trusts can also derive benefits from the state and, indeed, companies can also be primarily family affairs, yet family companies are exposed to the same transparency requirements as other companies. Where a trust is involved in land ownership, as set out above, the government believes that there is a public interest in bringing trust transparency in line with companies.
Greater transparency may help address a number of issues in the housing sector
50. Confusion about the ownership and control of land has been linked to a number of issues in the housing sector. The government’s view is that more transparent information about the ownership and control of land would be of benefit in a number of areas, for example:
a. High-rise residential buildings: The Building Safety Act 2022 grants certain protections to leaseholders of units in buildings of more than 11m tall with regards to historical remediation costs. One such condition is that a landlord cannot pass on remediation costs if their net worth is greater than £2m per relevant building that they, or their wider landlord group, own. The landlord group is the landlord under the lease and any person(s) associated with the relevant landlord. In this context, ‘associated’ means a person whose interest was held on trust or was beneficiary to a trust or any person who was a partner in a partnership during the relevant time. As such, it is necessary to understand the ownership structures behind trusts involved in high-rise buildings to demonstrate remediation liability – if a resident group believes they are being unfairly charged, it is currently sometimes difficult for them to demonstrate this as they cannot access trusts information for this purpose.
b. Community groups and business: There are many derelict or underused shops and premises on the high street and elsewhere. Often community groups or business are the only people with an interest in taking these on and using these spaces. Community groups and businesses looking to purchase underused or unused properties may find it hard to identify who they need to contact to negotiate with when there are structures behind the legal owner.
c. Private rented sector: Enforcement against rogue landlords can be difficult for local authorities (LAs) because some of the worst operators disguise their ownership of properties through complex arrangements or by rapidly moving between ownership structures. LAs might lack the resources, time, or expertise needed to identify these landlords where they are involved. Similarly, tenant groups taking on rogue landlords might not always be aware that they are challenging the same ultimate owner as another group, whereas a stronger case could be put together if this was clearer.
d. Other local authority enforcement: LAs often need to be able to identify parties beyond the legal owners of land to enforce certain laws or taxes. As an example, Westminster Council have seen a trend of American Candy Stores appearing in prime retail space on Oxford Street and in the surrounding West End area, with over 30 in just roughly a mile of high-street, which have failed to pay around £9 million in business rates. These candy stores are able to escape justice by registering fictional or incorrect directors at Companies House, meaning that tracing beneficial ownership and pursuing the relevant individuals through the courts is often unrealistic, extremely time-consuming and costly.
Transparent ownership can help with tackling illicit finance and corruption
51. Money laundering is a global problem that can undermine the integrity and stability of our financial markets and institutions. Whilst the UK’s 2020 National Risk Assessment (NRA 2020) found that UK trusts had a low risk of money laundering overall, it found that transactions made using offshore corporate structures or offshore trusts in the UK property sector pose a higher risk of money laundering. As noted in the NRA 2020, the UK property market is large, and whilst illicit money is likely to make up only a small proportion of the total funds invested, this could still be a significant amount; civil society investigations have raised questions about the legitimacy of the source of funds used to buy billions of pounds worth of UK property. For example, Transparency International have identified 513 properties in the UK that have been bought with wealth of questionable origin with a combined value of more than £5 billion.
52. Greater public access to information about beneficial ownership can help track down those who use UK property as vehicles for money laundering and illicit finance. As above, there is certain information on trusts that is not automatically publicly available through our registers. Law enforcement and public agencies do have access to this information, so are able to use it for the purpose of any investigations. However, it is possible that greater transparency around this information could further support efforts to tackle illicit finance and corruption, for example by facilitating even greater exposure of bad faith actors by other sectors or investigative journalists.
Chapter 1 questions about the overall principle of transparency of trusts owning land:
Question 1: Do you agree that more direct information about the ownership and control of land, including where a trust structure is involved, would help address the issues in the housing sector identified above?
Question 2: Are you aware of, or have you experienced, any housing-related issues where a lack of ownership information has caused a problem? Please give details.
Question 3: What further benefits do you see from increasing the transparency of land ownership, especially where trusts are involved, and what are the risks? Please provide any evidence you may have to support your position.
Chapter 2: Enhancing transparency of trust information available on the Register of Overseas Entities
Background
53. The ROE was established in August 2022 under the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (ECTEA 2022). Its main purpose is to enhance transparency regarding the beneficial ownership of overseas entities (for example, companies or other corporate bodies governed by the law of a country or territory outside of the UK) holding land in the UK. The main driver for the establishment of the ROE was difficulties in investigating the ownership structures holding land, particularly where money laundering was suspected.
54. Since its inception, the ROE has required overseas entities holding land in the UK to register. They are also required to disclose information about their registrable beneficial owners, or in some cases about their managing officers, to Companies House. Information supplied to Companies House must be verified by a UK-regulated professional.
55. Nearly 30,000 overseas entities are now registered on the ROE, and the information now available is proving helpful to law enforcement. In addition, it has been used by many journalists examining corruption, money laundering, and assets held by individuals subject to sanctions.
56. For the purposes of the ROE, a beneficial owner is any individual or entity that owns or has significant influence or control over the overseas entity, including (but not limited to), by virtue of the proportion of shares held in the entity. It can be:
a. an individual
b. another legal entity, such as a company
c. a government or public authority
d. a trustee of a trust
e. a member of a firm that is not a legal person under its governing law
57. Most of the information given to Companies House about overseas entities, beneficial owners and managing officers is publicly available on the ROE. However, the following information is not displayed publicly:
a. home addresses
b. full dates of birth (only the month and year will be shown)
c. the verification agent assurance code
d. the date verification checks were completed
e. information about trusts, except for the names of trustees, however it may be shared with HMRC, law enforcement and other public authorities
f. email addresses
58. Overseas entities have a duty to update their information on the register every year. This is to inform Companies House about any changes and to confirm that the information on ROE is still correct.
Information requirements for trusts on the Register of Overseas Entities
59. If an overseas entity has a registrable beneficial owner that is a trustee, it must also provide information about the trust to the ROE. In these cases, the following details are collected:
a. the name of the trust (or a description if it does not have a name)
b. the date on which the trust was created
c. trustees (including historic trustees)
d. personal details including names, dates of birth, nationality and addresses of beneficiaries of the trust
e. personal details including names, dates of birth, nationality and addresses of settlors or grantors of the trust
f. personal details including names, dates of birth, nationality and addresses of interested persons (persons who have rights in respect of trustees) and the date on which they became an interested person
60. It is clear from this list that a large amount of personal data is held, and this includes information about people who may be minors, or who may otherwise be vulnerable or at risk of harm. Both the merits and risks of increasing transparency over this data must be carefully weighed, including any security risks, though these may be mitigated by the expansion of the ROE protection regime, described below.
Changes to the Register of Overseas Entities
61. New information requirements relating to the holding of UK land by overseas entities acting as nominees have been introduced by the ECCTA 2023 and will come into effect in 2024. More information about the person or persons for whom the land is being held by the nominee will be required to be provided. The purpose of this change is to ensure that those seeking to remain anonymous cannot hide behind a nominee, but this does not alter the fundamental purpose of the ROE, which is to enhance public transparency over overseas entities holding land in the UK (rather than the beneficial owners of the land itself).
62. In addition, a new power has been inserted at section 23 of the ECTEA 2022 by section 167 of the ECCTA 2023. This is a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations enabling applications to be made for public access to unpublished trust information in circumstances to be specified in the regulations. The government will make regulations using this power in the next few months. This new application route will come into effect after a period of time which will provide an opportunity for individuals connected with trusts (or their representatives) to apply to Companies House for “protection”. The protection regime is described in more detail below.
63. Where an overseas entity has a beneficial owner that is another legal entity subject to its own disclosure requirements, the government intends to make regulations during 2024 to require more information about where the ownership and control particulars of the legal entity can be found.
64. These planned changes taken together will enhance even further the transparency that the ROE has brought over overseas entities that hold land.
Implementing protections from trust information being disclosed
65. Section 25 of the ECTEA 2022 provides for regulations to be made permitting applications to Companies House for the protection of all the information relating to a given individual. This means the information is not on the public register. Regulations already made under this section set out that an application can be made if evidence is provided that a person, or anyone they live with, will be at serious risk of intimidation or violence if the information about them is published. The regulations do not currently allow applications to be made by, or on behalf of, those persons connected with a trust (except for registerable beneficial owners who are trustees). This is because all other information about trusts is already suppressed from public inspection.
66. The government is planning to expand these regulations to enable persons connected with a trust to apply for protection, in circumstances that are wider than a risk of harm or violence (for example, for minors and vulnerable persons).
67. Increasing public transparency over trust information held by Companies House may give rise to concern that information about some individuals might be made public when it should be protected. Whilst the “protection regime” would remain whatever the outcome of this consultation, the government must consider what, if any, information should not be made public. For example, the government is seeking views on the handling and release of information about minors as part of future arrangements While there are several legal precedents for keeping information about minors confidential, such as during court proceedings, the government recognises that there may be circumstances under which there may be a legitimate public interest in this information, relating both to companies and land that they hold.
68. Additionally, there may be concern that the protection regime could be abused by those seeking to keep information about themselves from the public; for example, where a foreign government official has UK land holdings that they would not wish people to know about, because there is some question about how they have obtained the funds to purchase it. The government is confident that the procedures that Companies House already have in place to assess carefully applications for protection will mitigate against any risk of abuse. These procedures include the ability to refer applications to others, such as law enforcement, to assist with the decision-making process.
Questions about future transparency of trusts involving minors
Question 4: In any future proposed solution for enhancing transparency about trusts on the ROE following this consultation, do you believe that information about minors should be available to public inspection:
a. by default, with the onus on the overseas entity, the trust, or their representatives, to apply for protection under section 25 of the ECTEA 2022; or,
b. access permitted only by application with the applicant required to demonstrate a legitimate interest in the information?^
Please give reasons for your answer.
Question 5: If you believe that information about minors should not be made public by default, do you believe that it should remain accessible only to law enforcement, HMRC and public authorities, or would you support limited access under certain circumstances (for example, on application with a reason provided)? Please give reasons for your answer.
Options for enhancing transparency of trust information held on the ROE
69. Currently, only the details of trustees (in their capacity as registrable beneficial owners of an overseas entity) rather than beneficiaries or any other party to a trust, are publicly available on the ROE. As noted above, the government already intends to make regulations to allow applications for access to trust information on the ROE to be made.
70. The government intends that the regulations will allow applications to be made for access to the information held on a specific trust without an applicant having to provide evidence that there is a public or legitimate interest in the information being released All applicants would be required to explain how they intend to use the information. Companies House may place restrictions on how the information may be used.
71. If an applicant wishes to request access to information about more than one trust, they will be required to provide evidence that they have a legitimate interest in the information being requested and Companies House may place restrictions on how the information may be used.
72. The government does not propose changing the existing arrangements that apply to beneficiaries of large pension fund trusts, which is not to disclose that information publicly. Pension fund members do not direct or control the investments of their pension fund and the government does not consider that it would be in the public interest to provide this information on application, or to publish this information under any of the options outlined below.
73. The options set out below are in addition to these plans, and any proposed way forward which may affect those regulations longer term is noted here. Whichever option the government chooses, it will first consider carefully the legal and privacy risks associated with its proposed way forward, and factor this into its decision.
74. Options 1 and 2 may require new legislation. However, any delays to implementation this would cause would be mitigated by the availability of the regulations that have already been described.
Option 1: Trust information publicly available by default, except for protected information
75. Under this option, information collected about trusts on ROE would no longer be suppressed from public inspection as the default. All information, unless protected (including information about beneficiaries of the trust), would be part of the public ROE register. It would, as now, form part of the record of the overseas entity with which it is linked, rather than be displayed separately.
76. Questions 4 and 5 are about the publication of information about minors. The government will consider responses to these questions in formulating its proposals for its response to this consultation. This option, if taken forward, may therefore not include publication of information about minors. It would also not include information about anyone who has made a successful application for protection, as described above.
77. Only the month and year of birth of any individual would be published while the actual date and usual residential addresses would remain suppressed. This mirrors the rest of the ROE, where this information is not available for public inspection, but is available to law enforcement and public authorities. In addition, as noted above, information about the beneficiaries of large pension fund trusts would not be published.
78. Under this option, regulations made under Section 23 of the of the ECTEA 2022 allowing access to trust information by application could be revoked or amended.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| It would provide maximum public transparency about overseas entities owning land in the UK, with a justification for this option being the high money laundering risk to the UK that offshore structures pose. | Would reverse the long-held principle that, because trusts are generally private family and financial arrangements, information about them should not be publicly accessible. |
| It would allow easier analysis to information by those with an interest in it for legitimate purposes. | Would require more personal data to be publicly available than has previously been the case, and potential legal and other risks would need to be carefully considered before implementing this option. |
Option 2: Partial information made publicly available by default
79. A second option, which would address any real or perceived risks of making all information about trusts publicly accessible by default could be that only partial information is published. Unpublished information could still be accessible by application under the regulations mentioned above. The information published could include, for example, the name of the trust, date of creation, and the name of the settlor and/or any interested persons (or any other permutation that might enhance transparency whilst retaining some information, for example information about beneficiaries, as unavailable for public inspection). Under this option, regulations under Section 23 allowing access by application would remain in place so that extra information could be requested.
80. In common with Option 1, only the month and year of birth of any individual would be published while the actual date and usual residential addresses would remain suppressed, as would any information that is protected. Information about minors may also remain suppressed as described above. In addition, as noted above, information about the beneficiaries of large pension fund trusts would not be published.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Would provide more information helping to identify the trust, allowing searchers to request more targeted access to trust information that is not published. | May not meet some of the aspirations of the government. |
| Reduces the amount of personal data published, potentially reducing any risks associated with wider publication under Option 1. | Would require searchers to make an application once they have properly identified the trust in which they are interested; which could add a short delay to their search. |
| May be considered a more proportionate option than blanket publication. |
Option 3: No change in public availability
81. This option would mean that trust information (except for the names of trustees that are registrable beneficial owners) would remain suppressed by default. However, applications could be made under Section 23 regulations to access trust information.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Would address any concerns about the publication by default of information about private family and financial arrangements. | Would mean that anyone seeking to obtain trust information (except law enforcement, HMRC and public authorities) must make an application to Companies House to access it. |
Question 6: In your view, which of these options would it be most appropriate to take forward? Please give reasons for your answer, including your views about any risks associated with each option, and how it might help to achieve the government’s aims.
Question 7: What is the potential impact on business of your preferred option? If you believe there will be an impact, please evidence what that impact could be, and how businesses may be supported.
Question 8: What is the potential impact on individuals of your preferred option? If you believe that this would not be helped by the expanded protection regime, please provide reasons, and any alternative suggestions.
Question 9: If your preference is Option 2, which categories of data do you consider should be publicly available? Please give reasons for your answer with reference to the government’s stated principles set out in chapter 1 of this document.
Question 10: Do you have any other views on this issue that you wish to share with us?
Chapter 3: Increasing transparency of land-owning trusts
82. In addition to the specific proposals in Chapter 2 relating to trust information held on the ROE regarding offshore ownership structures, the government is also interested to hear views on the extent to which the transparency of land held by trusts not associated with ROE entities could be improved. This may include UK-resident trusts, which the National Risk Assessment 2020 judged to pose a relatively lower risk of money laundering than overseas trusts and other entities. It is right, therefore, for the government to consider this expansion separately, as different risk levels may indicate that different transparency arrangements are appropriate.
83. At present, when information is not in scope of the ROE, there is not a single register that holds both land and trust information. Information relating to trusts holding UK land may be recorded across multiple registers, if recorded at all.
84. This chapter seeks to gather views on what information about trusts would be useful and how access to that information would help meet the governments stated aims. It will also consider principles on who should have access and under what circumstances, what information should be published and what should be withheld for privacy/safety reasons. This information will help inform the most appropriate means to publish such information, and how to collect any information that is not already recorded on existing registers. The questions in this chapter are less specific than those in the previous chapter relating to the ROE, reflecting the fact that these matters relating to the ROE have been scrutinised more recently through the passage of the ECCTA 2023 – extending these principles to UK trusts needs more careful consideration through this consultation.
85. The Register of Title, maintained by HMLR, records the proprietors or ‘legal owners’ of land in England and Wales but, for reasons discussed in the Introduction, deliberately does not hold or publish information about beneficial ownership where that is different from legal ownership, as this could bring confusion to conveyancing and slow down the already quite laborious buying and selling process. Where a trust is involved HMLR may enter a restriction in the register, the presence of this restriction may be the only way to identify that a legal estate is owned on trust.
86. The main register of beneficial ownership of trusts, the TRS, only holds limited information on land (see annex A for information). This could not achieve the wider aims of this government in its current form, as it was set up to assist combating money laundering and terrorist financing rather than as a register of beneficial ownership of land.
87. It may be more appropriate, therefore, for the government to consider other means to record and make available information on trusts.
Striking the balance between privacy and transparency
88. The government must ensure that the balance is right between transparency and privacy. Trusts are often used for legitimate, personal reasons and the right of privacy for individual’s financial affairs must be balanced against the legitimate public interest in land transparency. The government is therefore keen to understand the minimum amount of information that is necessary and proportionate to meet objectives, whilst excluding that which may create unacceptable invasions of privacy.
89. It is important to note that the government would not necessarily have to make all the information it collects publicly available by default – it may be that the right balance is found by publishing the minimum amount of information necessary to establish the details of a trust and land it holds, with further details available to those who have a legitimate interest in knowing them. This is explored further below.
Residential and commercial land
90. The government is of the view that any transparency measures relating to trusts of land should apply to trusts holding any type of land, be it residential, commercial or any other use class. The primary reason for this is that to exclude any would leave an exploitable gap in the public’s understanding of land ownership relating to trusts. Trusts are used in the ownership of both residential and commercial land, so to focus on one may serve to drive any potential bad practices to the other. To exclude certain land use classes would also lead to unnecessary complexity in the application of these measures to mixed-use land and set up a dividing line which would likely be subject to dispute.
Question 11: Do you agree that any future transparency requirements should apply to all land, regardless of use class?
Question 12: Are there any factors the government should consider regarding different land use classes?
Data collection
Question 13: Which of the following data do you consider necessary and proportionate for the government to collect (or continue to collect) in order to meet the objective of greater transparency of land ownership as a matter of public interest? Please tick all that apply and give reasons for your answer.
| Name of trust (or other identifier) | Details of land owned by the trust | ||
| Name of trustees | Beneficiaries’ rights over the land | ||
| Name of beneficiaries | Address(s) of parties to trust | ||
| Name of settlors | Dates of birth of parties to trust | ||
| Name of protectors (if applicable) | Any other details (please specify) |
Question 14: Which of the following data do you consider necessary and proportionate for the government to collect (or continue to collect) in order to meet the objective of helping to address issues in the housing sector? Please tick all that apply and give reasons for your answer.
| Name of trust (or other identifier) | Details of land owned by the trust | ||
| Name of trustees | Beneficiaries’ rights over the land | ||
| Name of beneficiaries | Address(s) of parties to trust | ||
| Name of settlors | Dates of birth of parties to trust | ||
| Name of protectors (if applicable) | Any other details (please specify) |
Question 15: Which of the following data do you consider necessary and proportionate for the government to collect (or continue to collect) in order to meet the objective of helping to tackle illicit finance and corruption in respect of UK land ownership by overseas trusts? Please tick all that apply and give reasons for your answer, noting that overseas trusts are considered by the National Risk Assessment to pose a higher risk for money laundering.
| Name of trust (or other identifier) | Details of land owned by the trust | ||
| Name of trustees | Beneficiaries’ rights over the land | ||
| Name of beneficiaries | Address(s) of parties to trust | ||
| Name of settlors | Dates of birth of parties to trust | ||
| Name of protectors (if applicable) | Any other details (please specify) |
Question 16: Which of the following data do you consider necessary and proportionate for the government to collect (or continue to collect) in order to meet the objective of helping to tackle illicit finance and corruption in respect of UK land ownership by UK trusts? Please tick all that apply and give reasons for your answer, noting that UK trusts are considered by the National Risk Assessment to pose a relatively lower risk for money laundering.
| Name of trust (or other identifier) | Details of land owned by the trust | ||
| Name of trustees | Beneficiaries’ rights over the land | ||
| Name of beneficiaries | Address(s) of parties to trust | ||
| Name of settlors | Dates of birth of parties to trust | ||
| Name of protectors (if applicable) | Any other details (please specify) |
Data access
91. As set out above, the government is mindful of the need to balance any enhanced public access to trust information with the legitimate right to privacy for individuals who use trusts. In light of this, there are several options about what information is published, who has access to this information and under what circumstances. In evaluating views on these options the government will consider the best way in which that information should be accessed.
Option 1 – Retain existing access practices relating to trusts information
92. There may be arguments for not changing how trust information is currently accessed. For example, international legal precedents suggest that making beneficial ownership information publicly available is disproportionate in relation to tackling money laundering if law enforcement agencies have full access to the information. The government, however, intends for this information to be used for matters beyond money laundering, as set out in chapter 1 of this document.
Option 2 – Increased transparency of non-UK trusts holding UK land
93. Chapter 2 explains what is proposed for information held on ROE in respect of non-UK trusts. Under this option those principles could be extended to information held elsewhere, relating to non-UK trusts only. Given that non-UK trusts and other entities are assessed to be of a higher risk for money laundering, this may be seen as more proportionate in balancing some of the aims whilst preserving the right to privacy for most. However, this option may not meet many of the wider land aims the government is seeking to achieve.
Option 3 – Publish the minimum information necessary to meet the 3 overriding principles and retain current privacy practices for all other information
94. Under this option some trust information would be made available for public inspection where that trust is involved in land ownership. In many cases, this may be sufficient to reassure those interested in pieces of land, or give citizens enough information to understand and resolve any issues they may have.
Option 4 – Publish the minimum Information necessary to meet the 3 overriding principles and increase access to further information through an expanded ‘legitimate interest’ test
95. This option is similar to Option 3 but would allow access to retained information on application and subject to a new ‘legitimate interest’ test in relation to land. The government is keen to understand what ‘legitimate interests’ there may be in wider access to this information, but is clear that a person living on a piece of land should be included.
Option 5 – Publish all information collected about trusts by default
96. The maximalist approach would be to make all information public by default. There are options within this, such as allowing registering trusts to apply to protect certain information from publication, or clearly articulating necessary exemptions from publication as part of the policy (this is explored further below). However, it could be argued that publishing all information by default would be an unreasonable invasion of the private affairs of citizens, and a disproportionate intervention to address the issues noted in this consultation.
Question 17: Which of the above options do you consider reasonable and proportionate to address the issues outlined in this consultation? Please give reasons for your answer.
| Option 1 – Retain existing access practices relating to trusts information | |
| Option 2 – Increased transparency of non-UK trusts holding UK land | |
| Option 3 – Publish the minimum information necessary to fulfil objectives and retain current privacy practices for all other information | |
| Option 4 – Publish the minimum information necessary to fulfil objectives and increase access to further information through a new ‘legitimate interest’ test | |
| Option 5 – Publish all information collected about trusts by default |
Question 18: If you chose options 3 or 4, which of the following data would you consider necessary and proportionate for the government to publish by default in order to identify a trust holding a particular piece of land, if further data is available under certain circumstances? Please tick all that apply and give reasons for your answer.
| Name of trust (or other identifier) | Details of land owned by the trust | ||
| Name of trustees | Beneficiaries’ rights over the land | ||
| Name of beneficiaries | Address(s) of parties to trust | ||
| Name of settlors | Dates of birth of parties to trust | ||
| Name of protectors (if applicable) | Any other details (please specify) |
Question 19: If you chose option 4, who do you think should qualify under a ‘legitimate interest test’ to allow access to further detail? Please tick all that apply and give reasons for your answer.
| Resident on land owned by the trust | Owner/resident of land neighbouring the land owned by the trust | ||
| Residents associations or their representatives | Relevant local authorities | ||
| Investigative journalists (for reasons other than money laundering or terrorist financing) | Academic institutions (for research reasons) | ||
| Other (please specify) |
Exemptions from publication
97. The government recognises that there may be persons involved in a trust that should be protected from having their details published. Examples may include trusts where land is held for the benefit of vulnerable people, such as children. It is also common for those unable to manage their own affairs – for example because of lack of legal capacity – to have their assets managed for them by a trust. Such individuals may be placed at a risk of personal or other harm if information relating to their role in a trust is publicly released. There may also be situations where it is not in the public interest for activities on certain pieces of land that may be discernible through ownership transparency, such as those relating to national security, to be made public by default.
98. It is vital that any increase in transparency of trusts both recognises the potential to place certain people in harm’s way, and allows permitted confidential activity to continue. The government therefore believes that there are reasonable grounds to consider exemptions from publication by default, though this information would still be available to certain people under certain circumstances, including law enforcement agencies. Any exemptions would need to be considered in the context of how and where this information is published, which is not explored in this consultation.
Question 20: Please detail any situations where you think trust information should be protect from publication by default, and give reasons for your answers.
Annex A: Summary of trust information currently recorded on ownership registers
Register of Title (HM Land Registry)
1. The Register of Title held by HM Land Registry records the legal ownership of land and property in England and Wales. The Register of Title records the ownership of the legal estate, not any beneficial interests in the land.
2. This means that where land is held by a trust, the publicly accessible title held by HM Land Registry will show the names of the trustees as the legal owners of the land; but the Register of Title does not record any information on the beneficiaries or settlors of the trust.
3. Land that is owned in trust will, however, usually have a restriction against the title which details that at least 2 proprietors must consent to any disposition of the property (this particular restriction is known as a ‘Form A restriction’). The presence of this restriction indicates that the land is owned in trust and that a single trustee cannot dispose of the land free from the trust.
Register of Overseas Entities
4. The following table shows the information that may be recorded on the Register of Overseas Entities about trusts where a registerable beneficial owner of a registered overseas entity is a trustee of a trust. In all cases, information about the overseas entity itself must also be provided.
| Trust | Trust name Trust start date |
|---|---|
| Trustees | Names of current and previous trustees Dates when trustees started/ceased their role |
| Settlor (individual) | Name Month and year of birth Nationality Residential address Service address |
| Settlor (corporate entity) | Name Registered office Service address Legal form Details of registration on overseas registers |
| Beneficiaries (Individual) | Name Month and year of birth Nationality Residential address Service address |
| Beneficiary (corporate entity) | Name Registered office Service address Legal form Details of registration on overseas registers |
| Any person who can appoint or remove trustees (individual) | Name Month and year of birth Nationality Residential address Service address |
| Any person who can appoint or remove trustees (corporate entity) | Name Registered office Service address Legal form Details of registration on overseas registers |
Trust Registration Service
5. The TRS is a register of trusts held by HMRC. Initially set up as a register of taxable trusts in 2017, with effect from 1 September 2022 the register was expanded to include UK express trusts, and non-UK trusts with certain links to the UK, subject to certain exclusions for some categories of trusts that pose an inherently low risk of being manipulated for money-laundering purposes or that are already regulated elsewhere.
6. The TRS has 602,000 trusts registered up to 31 March 2023 and that remained open as at 31 August 2023. Of this number, 171,000 registered as taxable trusts and 431,000 registered as non-taxable trusts.
7. The following table shows the information that may be recorded on the TRS for each registered trust.
| Trust | Trust name Trust start date Correspondence address Telephone Number Does the trust hold UK property acquired on/after 6 October 2020? Does the trust have a UK business relationship? Does the trust have a controlling interest in a third country entity? Is the trust UK resident? |
| Trustees (individuals) | Name Month and year of birth Country of nationality Country of residence |
| Trustees (corporate entities) | Name Unique Taxpayer Reference (if registered with HMRC) Country of residence |
| Settlor (individual) | Name Month and year of birth Country of nationality Country of residence |
| Settlor (corporate entity) | Name Country of residence |
| Beneficiaries (Individual) | Name Month and year of birth Country of nationality Country of residence |
| Beneficiaries (class) | Description of the class of beneficiaries |
| Beneficiaries (charities or trusts) | Name Country of residence |
| Beneficiaries (company or employment related) | Name of company Country of residence of the company Description of the class of beneficiaries |
| Beneficiaries (other) | Description Country of residence |
| Individuals who have control over the trust | Name Month and year of birth Country of nationality Country of residence |
| Corporate entities who have control over the trust | Name Unique Taxpayer Reference (if registered with HMRC) Country of residence |
| Third country entities under control of the trust | Entity name Address Which country’s laws govern the entity? Start date of the trust’s controlling interest in the entity? |
| Assets (only recorded for trusts that are liable to UK taxation) | Statement of assets at the point of registration, including: Money Property or land (description, address and estimated value) Shares Businesses Other assets |
| Unlike the other information within this table, there is no requirement to update TRS with any changes to assets that occur after the point of registration. | |
| Additional information recorded from taxable trusts | For each individual involved in a taxable trust, TRS records National Insurance Numbers, Unique Taxpayer References, UK address or passport details (if no NINO/UTR provided). |
About this consultation
This consultation document and consultation process have been planned to adhere to the consultation principles issued by the Cabinet Office.
Representative groups are asked to give a summary of the people and organisations they represent, and where relevant who else they have consulted in reaching their conclusions when they respond.
Information provided in response to this consultation may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and UK data protection legislation. In certain circumstances this may therefore include personal data when required by law.
If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, as a public authority, the Department is bound by the information access regimes and may therefore be obliged to disclose all or some of the information you provide. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the department.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will at all times process your personal data in accordance with UK data protection legislation and in the majority of circumstances this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties. A full privacy notice is included below.
Individual responses will not be acknowledged unless specifically requested.
Your opinions are valuable to us. Thank you for taking the time to read this document and respond.
Are you satisfied that this consultation has followed the consultation principles? If not or you have any other observations about how we can improve the process please contact us via the complaints procedure.
Personal data
The following is to explain your rights and give you the information you are entitled to under UK data protection legislation.
Note that this section only refers to personal data (your name, contact details and any other information that relates to you or another identified or identifiable individual personally) not the content otherwise of your response to the consultation.
1. The identity of the data controller and contact details of our Data Protection Officer
The DLUHC is the data controller. The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk or by writing to the following address: Data Protection Officer, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.
2. Why we are collecting your personal data
Your personal data is being collected as an essential part of the consultation process, so that we can contact you regarding your response and for statistical purposes. We may also use it to contact you about related matters.
We will collect your IP address if you complete a consultation online. We may use this to ensure that each person only completes a survey once. We will not use this data for any other purpose.
Sensitive types of personal data
Please do not share special category personal data or criminal offence data if we have not asked for this unless absolutely necessary for the purposes of your consultation response. By ‘special category personal data’, we mean information about a living individual’s:
- race
- ethnic origin
- political opinions
- religious or philosophical beliefs
- trade union membership
- genetics
- biometrics
- health (including disability-related information)
- sex life; or
- sexual orientation.
By ‘criminal offence data’, we mean information relating to a living individual’s criminal convictions or offences or related security measures.
3. Our legal basis for processing your personal data
The collection of your personal data is lawful under article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation as it is necessary for the performance by DLUHC of a task in the public interest/in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. Section 8(d) of the Data Protection Act 2018 states that this will include processing of personal data that is necessary for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a government department, in this case, a consultation.
Where necessary for the purposes of this consultation, our lawful basis for the processing of any special category personal data or ‘criminal offence’ data (terms explained under ‘Sensitive Types of Data’) which you submit in response to this consultation is as follows. The relevant lawful basis for the processing of special category personal data is Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR (‘substantial public interest’), and Schedule 1 paragraph 6 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘statutory etc and government purposes’). The relevant lawful basis in relation to personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences data is likewise provided by Schedule 1 paragraph 6 of the Data Protection Act 2018.
4. With whom we will be sharing your personal data
We may share your data with other organisations which have a direct interest in the policy on which we are consulting, for example: Crown bodies, government departments or DLUHC partner organisations. We will also share your data with Microsoft who provide DLUHC’s IT systems as our Data Processor, under strict terms and conditions.
DLUHC may appoint a ‘data processor’, acting on behalf of the department and under our instruction, to help analyse the responses to this consultation. Where we do we will ensure that the processing of your personal data remains in strict accordance with the requirements of the data protection legislation.
5. For how long we will keep your personal data, or criteria used to determine the retention period.
Your personal data will be held for at least 2 years from the closure of the consultation, unless we identify that its continued retention is unnecessary before that point.
6. Your rights, eg access, rectification, restriction, objection
The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have considerable say over what happens to it. You have the right:
a. to see what data we have about you
b. to ask us to stop using your data, but keep it on record
c. to ask to have your data corrected if it is incorrect or incomplete
d. to object to our use of your personal data in certain circumstances
e. to lodge a complaint with the independent Information Commissioner (ICO) if you think we are not handling your data fairly or in accordance with the law. You can contact the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/, or telephone 0303 123 1113.
Please contact us at the following address if you wish to exercise the rights listed above, except the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO: dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk or Knowledge and Information Access Team, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.
7. Your personal data will not be sent overseas.
8. Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision making.
9. Your personal data will be stored in a secure government IT system.
We use a third-party system, Citizen Space, to collect consultation responses. In the first instance your personal data will be stored on their secure UK-based server. Your personal data will be transferred to our secure government IT system as soon as possible, and it will be stored there for 2 years before it is deleted.