The government first announced the plan last May at the London Anti-Corruption Summit stating that it would create a register of overseas company beneficial ownership information identifying where a company owns UK property.

‘The register will be an important tool in law enforcement investigations and will bring transparency to the ownership and control of overseas companies that own UK property,’ the government stated at the time.

A combination of concerns about potential abuse of the property market, particularly as a money laundering vehicle, and high London prices, has forced the government to act.

Evidence revealed in a recent House of Lords debate on the London property market indicated that  ‘just under 3,000 less-than-transparent companies set up by Mossack Fonseca held 6,000 Land Registry titles in this country, with combined historical costs of £7bn, and that more than 40,000 properties - 10% in the London borough of Westminster - are owned by offshore companies with unknown beneficiaries’.

The calls for a property ownership register come after rising concerns about money laundering through the UK property market.

‘It has also given rise to strong suspicions about property being used for money laundering and for keeping finance hidden,’ Lord Rosser told the Lords.

‘If offshore companies holding property titles in this country were required to declare their beneficiaries, it would be in line with the requirement on UK companies to disclose ownership. Having a public register as provided for in this amendment in relation to UK property would help to lift offshore secrecy and eradicate money laundering in the United Kingdom,’ he added.

Speaking in the House of Lords debate on amendments to the Criminal Finances Bill, which is currently going through parliament, Baroness Williams of Trafford, minister of state at the Home Office, confirmed that the register would go ahead.

‘Since the summit, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been working closely with experts in many disciplines to develop the proposals and ensure that the register will work effectively across the whole UK,’ Baroness Trafford said.

‘The policy is unusually multifaceted, bringing together complex legal areas of international company law and land law across the UK. It is therefore taking time to develop effective proposals to ensure that we deliver full transparency without creating undue burdens on business or adversely impacting commercial property transactions.

‘We intend to publish a call for evidence, which will set out the policy proposals in full, in the coming weeks. We will also introduce legislation to implement the register as soon as parliamentary time allows.’