London is the wild west of the global property market – and it needs a sheriff | Simon Jenkins

We must legislate to curb the overseas tycoons buying up apartments and leaving them empty

One of the biggest property tycoons in London is the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Guardian revealed last week that he owned around £5.5bn of real estate in the city. This covers streets and buildings in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Kensington, and may be more valuable even than the London holdings of the Grosvenor Estate, surpassed only by the Crown.

For a foreign head of state to secretly possess so much property in any capital is bizarre and presumably of security concern. When his regime is dictatorial and believes in the use of torture, enforced disappearance and imprisoning government critics, it should be triply unwelcome. Imagine the outcry if the owner was revealed as Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un.

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