The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA) received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023, with the provisions of ECCTA to be brought in by secondary legislation in stages throughout 2024 and 2025....more
KEY FACTS OF REAL ESTATE ACQUISITIONS UNDER BRITISH LAW - 1. Introduction - Historically, there has been significant investment by overseas individuals and corporations in real estate in England and Wales and in...more
The Register of Overseas Entities launched nearly a year ago on 1 August 2022. The Register was established as a measure to increase transparency in the ownership of overseas entities that own UK land....more
The City of London Law Society has published the Eighth Edition of the Certificate of Title, the most substantial review and update since the Seventh Edition was published in 2013. The suite of CLLS Certificate of Title...more
The deadline for registration as an Overseas Entity is fast approaching and by 31 January 2023, all qualifying overseas entities, who own freehold land or property in the UK (or leasehold land of more than seven years), must...more
The transitional period for the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 will end on 31 January. This is in eleven days’ time. Read on to find out what this means in practice for overseas entities dealing with...more
This note summarizes those provisions of the Act applicable to England and Wales that deal with the new register of overseas entities ("ROE") that has been established at Companies House in the UK. It seeks to identify and,...more
As anticipated in our previous article on 7 March 2022, Companies House launched the new register of overseas entities (the “ROE”) pursuant to the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (the “Act”), so...more
The Economic Crime Act, which received Royal Assent on 15 March 2022, will require overseas entities that are owners or leaseholders of land in the UK to register at Companies House and provide information about their...more
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has pushed forward a wider government agenda to encourage transparency in relation to how overseas entities own UK real estate. We first reported many years ago on the details of the...more
Rushed through the Parliament in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the new Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act (the “Act”) received Royal Assent on 15 March 2022....more
The UK Government has recently introduced the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill 2022 (the Bill). Amongst other objectives, the Bill proposes the setting up of a register of overseas entities and their...more
As long ago as 2015, then Prime Minister David Cameron announced his determination to tackle “dirty money” in UK property. A lot of water has flowed under the political bridge since then but the invasion of Ukraine by Russian...more
On 27 July 2020 the Land Registry in England & Wales updated its guidance to confirm that they will, for the foreseeable future, accept e-signed documents/deeds including on transactions that trigger a change to the register,...more
In May 2020, McGuireWoods reported on temporary changes to the Land Registry’s requirements to make it easier to sign deeds for land registration purposes. In short, the Land Registry softened its approach to photographic...more
The Land Registry has announced this morning that, with immediate effect and until further notice, they will accept for registration transfers, leases and certain other deeds which have been electronically signed....more
On 2 April 2020, we released an alert with guidance on how to sign English law documents and deeds during lockdown. The Law Society and HM Land Registry recently published updated guidance on the use of virtual execution and...more
This advisory outlines temporary changes introduced by the HM Land Registry in May on how to validly sign documents being executed as deeds for Land Registry purposes through a five step process that satisfies options and...more
As working from home becomes the new “normal”, the UK real estate industry has eagerly awaited a Land Registry response and, in particular, whether execution formalities would be reconsidered in light of COVID-19. On May 1,...more
KEY FACTS OF REAL ESTATE ACQUISITIONS UNDER BRITISH LAW. Introduction - Historically, there has been significant investment by overseas individuals and corporations in real estate in England and Wales and in particular in...more
HM Land Registry is currently looking into the potential use of blockchain technology as part of its Digital Street project. This supports HM Land Registry’s aim to “become the world’s leading land registry for speed,...more