Real estate

Good to know

• The vendor’s checks start as soon as the vendor is added to the case. The buyer’s start when contracts are exchanged, so a buyer added earlier waits.
• The side your agency acts for is your own client: the vendor for a selling agent, the buyer for a buyer’s agent. A person who will not give the information asked for is rated high risk only if they are your own client; the other side’s reluctance is recorded instead.
• The rules read what staff and customers answer on the case, so most of the risk ratings below come from an answer being saved, not from a check running.

Designated services

A case is opened for one of these.

• Brokering the purchase, sale or transfer of real estate

Where a case goes

Each person on a case has a card with these stages, in this order. The names are the ones on the screen.

• Customer identification — Who they are: the identity check, the ID document, proof of address. 12 rules
• Beneficial ownership — Who owns or controls a company or trust, and how complicated the structure is. 4 rules
• Property & corporate records — Title, rates and registration records for the property or the entity. 2 rules
• Financial & legal papers — Lenders, bank statements, source of funds and source of wealth evidence. 17 rules
• Customer due diligence — The background questions every customer is asked. 3 rules
• Enhanced due diligence — The extra steps for a customer rated higher risk. 3 rules
• Sanctions, PEP and adverse media — Watchlist screening and the country check. 7 rules
• Risk scoring and tiering — The overall rating, the factors behind it, and the officer’s decisions. 8 rules
• On the case — Checks on payments and the property, and the case-level banner. 6 rules

When eAML looks at its rules