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Avenfield House or ‘tax haven’ house?
LONDON: The family of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is not the only resident of Avenfield House on London’s Park Lane who bought their properties through offshore companies incorporated in tax havens.
According to the UK Land Registry record, the majority of flats in Avenfield House are owned by offshore companies incorporated in tax havens like Panama, the British Virgin Islands and Guernsey.
The Nielsen Enterprises Limited and the Nescoll Limited, two offshore companies linked to the family of Mr Sharif, own four luxury flats in Avenfield House: 16, 16a, 17 and 17a, all situated on one floor and converted into one big house by removing partition walls.
Majority of flats in the building are owned by offshore companies incorporated in tax havens like Panama, British Virgin Islands and Guernsey
The flat 17 was the first to be bought by the Nawaz Sharif family through the Nescoll Limited in June 1993. It was followed by the purchase of flats 16 and 16a which were both bought on July 31, 1995.
The flat 17a was the last to be bought by the Nawaz Sharif family on 23 July 1996.
The Sharif family also owns another property in Avenfield House, flat 12a, but it is not purchased through an offshore company but through the Flagship Investment Limited, a firm registered with Companies House in the United Kingdom with Hasan Nawaz Sharif as one of its directors.
The title deed of this flat shows a purchase price of 365,000 pounds and completion date of Jan 29, 2004.
Of the other Avenfield House properties, flat 20 and 21 are owned by the Hung Yip Development Limited, an offshore company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands while flat 9 and 10 are owned by the Mellen Management Limited, incorporated in Panama.
The basement and mezzanine floors of Avenfield House are owned by the Avenfield S.A., an offshore company incorporated in the Netherlands, while flat 6 is owned by the Mia Management Limited, an offshore company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.
Flat 18 of Avenfield House is owned by Abyaar Holdings Limited, an offshore company incorporated in Guernsey.
Avenfield House is not the worst example of property holding through offshore companies as the nearby Edgware Road has around 150 properties bought through companies incorporated in tax havens.
Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2018
Comments (22)
Ill got, ill spent.
This I’ll gotten wealth should be recovered ASAP and put in the public exchequer.
British are civilized people, instead of running EAST INDIA COMPANY and Colonizing black people, they left behind brown saheb who will steal money from working class and transfer it to them.
Flats owned by Sharif family have been politicized out of proportion. Many Pakistani businessmen own even bigger properties all over the world. Nawaz Sharif has been singled out because he indulged in politics.
Everyone says that these properties were bought in 90s, Sharifs say, it was bought in 2006. Why? Because properties were bought through corruption money when Nawaz was in power in 90s and they can't give money trail.
They want to live where the financial action is.
Kudos to Sajid Iqbal for writing this article . Good research and information for the public who are oblivious to the fact that this man is responsible for wide scale corruption
It isn’t illegal to own property through an offshore company in the Uk, it’s perfectly legitimate. The issue you should be concentrating on is was the money acquired illegally. Otherwise this family is rich and there is nothing unusual in them having property in the UK, especially if bought in the early 2000’s
All th looted money must be recovered from Shariff family by force.
It is beyond reason to expect that British government is unaware that most of these offshore companies are use to hide ill gotten gains of third world counties . Fix your own backyard before giving us morality lectures. Shame on you UK !
May these corrupt politicans rot away
What a coincidence! NS would know the court decision by siting at the crime scene.
Shame on UK to allow offshore ownership while the locals are suffering. Offshore money is not clean.
Informative,if possible please print who are the real owners of other offshore companies mentioned in this article.Are they Pakistanis?
Its not TAX heaven, it is stolen money and transferred through money laundring
This is landmark decision made by NAB court,one thing necessary looting money back to Pakistan with right intentions on ASAP.Poor getting poor and rich one is escalating day by day.Time is demanding to full the treasury of Pakistan.
@Dr Riffat Jabeen not every flat is owned by a Pakistani in Avenfiled House, and not necessarily all politicians or leaders.
@Akhtar husain NS has been signaled out because he was the leader of a country and not a business man
Many people in the world Pakistan is saying thanks. People who brought up panamagate. Imran Khan for pressing on to investigate Shrief. Pakistani who went in detail to get all this information. The NAB to prosecute and indicted corrupt Shrief family.
Dar our financial minister is running around in England. Ex PM Abbassi made his exit from Pakistan. Abbassi needs to be prosecuted for helping Shrief and othe corrupt PML-N members. Sincerely
what a shame for Pakistan and UK also promotes such illegal wealth to be used to boost their economy!
@Dr Riffat Jabeen and in jail
corruption expose