Recent investigations have uncovered that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s family and associates have amassed a real estate portfolio in London worth hundreds of millions of dollars. While new UK transparency laws aimed at revealing secret foreign ownership have made some progress—disclosing that Aliyev’s daughters own six luxury apartments—ownership of an additional 10 properties worth $160 million remains concealed through their transfer into an offshore trust. This loophole in the legislation allows trust structures to escape public scrutiny, undermining anti-corruption efforts.
Transparency advocates argue that such gaps erode the integrity of the housing market and enable money laundering. The Aliyev family’s properties exemplify how the wealthy exploit the system to shield assets from public oversight. This creates a two-tiered system where those able to establish trusts enjoy greater privacy than ordinary citizens.
Despite growing calls for enhanced transparency, some politicians and industry representatives contend that trust beneficiaries deserve privacy, especially since trusts are often used to manage assets for vulnerable individuals like minors. Transparency advocates counter that existing safeguards for vulnerable property owners could easily be extended to trust beneficiaries without compromising efforts to combat corruption.
The Aliyev family’s use of secret trusts to conceal their properties exposes fundamental flaws in the UK’s transparency framework, enabling global elites to operate with impunity. While the UK government has pledged to address trust transparency, concrete measures have yet to materialize. A recent proposal to allow public requests for trust information via Companies House marks progress, but limitations persist, including the need to know the trust’s name, which is often not publicly accessible.
The ongoing use of offshore trusts to obscure property ownership underscores the urgent need for stronger transparency measures. Until these loopholes are addressed, the UK property market will remain vulnerable to exploitation by those seeking to evade scrutiny.
