You asked
We are trying to establish the extent (number/value/other) of UK (residents and businesses) investment in European property.
(This huge investment is at risk whilst residents are unable to travel due to COVID-19 lockdown to check security, state of properties/roofs etc, sort out estates for deceased, management etc. The property owners are lobbying to travel early before general holiday-makers stampede. BREXIT also raises issues of short stays proposed but not as urgent as above. Queries being directed at MPs etc)
Queries regarding early travel have been directed via THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE to government. BEIS and DIT have had a meeting and agreed to take this forward.
The stats/facts and figures however need to be established.
Any estimates /information on this held by the UK government would be useful.
Also European and French sources would be welcome.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The Wealth and Assets Survey collects data on the ownership and value of overseas property.
The following link will take you to our property wealth tables: Property wealth tables. These tables are estimates published as part of the Wealth in Great Britain release. The latest data are from April 2016 to March 2018 and covers private househods in Great Britain.
Within these tables:
- Table 3.2 shows ownership of 'other' property, this includes values of land or property overseas, but doesn't have any lower level detail, i.e. doesn't detail specific overseas location (e.g. Europe). This is then broken down by percentage of households with this kind of property ownership.
- The latest estimates suggest that 3% of households (equivalent to 680,000 households) have overseas land or property.
We have not provided estimates of how much wealth is held in overseas properties as we do not hold this information. We can however produce an ad-hoc estimate of wealth held in overseas properties, subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs. If you would be interested in the production of this bespoke output, please contact wealth.and.assets.survey@ons.gov.uk with your request.