Who owns property and leaves it empty?

Recently the Grenfell tower tragedy has exposed the scandal of unoccupied foreign owner property in the UK. This article from the Guardian has data relating to Kensington and Chelsea.

Foreign owned property - the facts

 A recent report by the University of York and Centre for Housing Policy examined the extent of property purchases by foreign owners in London  and discoverd a rising trend.from 13.1% of 2015 sales and 17.9  % 2016 sales.
For a comparison with other types of ownership see this report produced for the Mayor of London on housing supply in London
The UK government has proposals to set up a register for foreign companies who own property in the UK 
The House of Commons Library has recently prepared this briefing on Foreign owned residential property. This summarises recent reports and evidence on the scale and regulation of foreign ownership

For an overall picture of occupancy rates and empy property see the UK government data tables
which lists housing by type including vacant from 1997 onwards.
The Empty Homes Agency is a charity who collects statistics and researches vacant buildings.
Shelter has news, briefings and reports on the housing crisis in England