Who Owns What? Following the money behind land and property
Finding out who owns a building is often the first step in a housing campaign, and it's rarely simple. Ownership in the UK can sit behind layers of companies and filings. The information is usually public, but hard to piece together.
To help with this, Data for Housing Justice, Digital Commons Coop, and the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) ran Who Owns What, a free webinar on tracing who is behind land and property, and what to do with that information.
Nearly 40 people joined, including housing organisers, tenants' union members and people working in related fields. There were lots of questions in the chat throughout.
What we covered
LandExplorer. The Digital Commons Coop team introduced LandExplorer, our online tool for finding land and property ownership across England and Wales. We showed how to search for properties linked to particular companies, large landowners or local authorities, and how to look at changes in ownership over time.
Reading company accounts. In the second half, Tom Sanderson from the CIJ looked at what to do once you have a company name. Companies don't share much about themselves by choice, but they are legally required to file some information publicly. Using a real set of accounts, Tom showed how to search Companies House, read a filing history and find the useful details among the jargon. His advice included reading accounts back to front, as the most useful information is often in the notes at the end.
Tom's session was interactive, and attendees looked up companies on Companies House as he went through it. We think that the two sessions fitted together well: LandExplorer helps you find who owns a property, and the accounts help you understand the company behind it.
Tom is happy to be contacted with questions: tom (at) tcij (dot) org
Resources
From the webinar:
Other useful tools:
- LandExplorer
- LandExplorer user guide
- OpenCorporates, a global database of company information
- ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database, for tracing offshore companies and trusts
What's next
Thank you to everyone who came, and to Tom and the CIJ for working with us. We'd like to run more sessions like this, so let us know what you'd like them to cover.
To stay in touch:
