Real estate can be an attractive channel for criminals wishing to launder illicit funds.
Criminals can purchase a property using illicit funds, live in the property purchased with illicit funds, renovate the property (using illicit funds) to improve its value and sell the property later for a capital gain.
The ultimate beneficial ownership of real estate can also be easily concealed, making it an attractive asset class for criminals.
The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (ML/TF) risks associated with the real estate sector include:
Businesses within the real estate industry captured by the AML/CTF obligations must ensure their organisation conducts a comprehensive ML/TF risk assessment to identify, assess, mitigate and manage ML/TF risk exposures. This is a critical first step in complying with the AML/CTF Act and Rules.
These are the services offered by the real estate industry that may be included as designated services under the AML/CTF Act.
If you offer or provide one or more of the above services, your business will be subject to AML/CTF obligations.
The AML/CTF regime is risk-based, which means that your responses to the AML/CTF obligations placed upon you should be risk-based.
A risk-based AML/CTF regime requires that you understand and address the Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (ML/TF) risks associated with the services you offer.
You must then design, implement and maintain systems, procedures and controls that appropriately manage and mitigate your ML/TF risks.
Initialism are the AML/CTF experts, so you don’t have to be.
With over 50 years of expert knowledge and real world experience our AML/CTF compliance solutions will help you to navigate your legal and regulatory requirements so that your business complies with its AML/CTF obligations in the fastest and most cost-effective way.
Initialism has a range of AML/CTF solutions to support your business in becoming AML/CTF compliant and maintaining compliance.
Our expertise covers all AML/CTF disciplines and brings unique perspectives, approaches and solutions to the AML/CTF challenges faced by the real estate industry
Our AML/CTF compliance knowledge includes working with real estate businesses and we understand what compliance means for your business
We have experience in delivering workable AML/CTF compliance to the real estate industry
Our knowledge and expertise has been hard earned and comes from working in the area of AML/CTF for many decades
We have experience in providing tried and tested AML/CTF solutions, regardless of the size and complexity of your real estate business
Our AML/CTF compliance solutions are flexible and can be tailored to your capacity, experience and budget