Who Owns Britain

189,000 families own two-thirds of the UK’s 60 million acres, of  which nearly three-quarters is owned by the top 40,000. The biggest individual landowner  turned out to be the Duke of Buccleuch with 277,000 acres, and the wealthiest was the  Duke of Westminster with 140,000 acres, including 100 acres in London’s Mayfair – which  alone, in 2001, was valued at £3.35 billion – as well as 200 acres in Belgravia, its even more  expensive neighbour. Land owned and controlled by Britain’s Royal Family, comprising the  Crown Estates, the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, and private land, amounted to some  677,000 acres. Meanwhile, Britain’s 16.8 million homeowners accounted for barely 4 per  cent of the land, about the same as that owned by the Forestry Commission, the top institutional landowner. Some 5.6 million acres, or  nearly 10 per cent of Britain’s land area is still unaccountable.

The median value for household net property wealth is £90,000 (i.e. half of houseolds have less than this and half have more). To be in the top 10% requires net property wealth of over £314,500 whilst 32% of households have nothing. The top 1% of the population has net property wealth of up to £15,040,000.