Purchase House Anonymously?

[seeandjay]

Hi,
Myself and my spouse wish to purchase a house which will give access to part of own property, for may be future developerment. However we wish to do it as anonymously as possible. We are prepared to ask a trusted pal not known locally to view the property, etc. and a solicitor to act on our behalf for purchase, conveyancing etc.

We are in no way trying to avoid tax (does company profit tax apply, what about CGT when we want to eventually own it as individuals, and will CGT ever apply in a company ownership scenario?) I would also prefer if our personal names did not go onto the land registry as a savvy person could trace ownership easily via that route.

We need to keep our purchase v. quiet locally, we live in a small town, as we would need to buy at least one other property to open up access properly to our site and obviously prices would go through the roof if that was known. Also we don't want to start a domino effect and have other investors buy one of the properties we will need in the future so that they in turn can hold us to ransom.

Any suggestions please???

 

[ClubMan]

As far as I know if you buy a property then you details will eventually be in the public domain (e.g. on the deeds as registered with the Land Registry/Registry of Deeds). I don't think that there is any way to buy anonymously except if you do it at arm's length, through another party or a company. But there would be risks and other issues to consider with such an approach. Best to get professional advice on this. Your solicitor should be able to help.

 

[Vanilla]

You can have someone buy 'in trust' for you. They can be registered as owner, in trust, and a deed of trust drawn up. Your solicitor will advise.