The complex corporate structures which Abacus and Adriatic operate appear to be designed to make it difficult for leaseholders to buy the freeholds for their homes. Under English law, leaseholders of flats have the “right of first refusal” to purchase their freehold if their current freeholder wishes to sell the title. But if the freehold is transferred to an “associated company”, the leaseholder has no such right.



Our analysis of the group’s corporate records show a pattern where instead of buying the freehold directly from a company owned by a developer - which would trigger the right of first refusal - they instead keep the freehold with the same company, but rename it and transfer the shares from the developer to the group.

This isn’t just a story about business people hiding behind anonymous companies to use a feudal quirk in British law to profit from normal people. An Adriatic Land company was in the news two weeks ago when a major fire hit a block of flats they own in Barking. Their anonymous company structures had long been a problem for the residents affected by this fire:

Venilia Batista Amorim, Treasurer of the Barking Reach Residents' Association told Global Witness, “lots of us have tried to contact them [Adriatic Land] about the cladding after Grenfell – but there’s no way to contact them. They don’t even have a website.

“There was a meeting for residents at our community centre yesterday [the day after the fire]. There was no one there from Adriatic – they sent a representative from HomeGround [their management company] on their behalf but they didn’t say much.

“It’s frustrating. We’re trying to get hold of someone responsible for these things, and we can’t. They really hide behind all of these bureaucratic layers of management.”