Over 20,000 UK agency branches have now registered with HMRC for anti-money laundering supervision.
A new analysis from risk management platform Thirdfort shows that 20,059 UK branches across the country are now checked in with HMNRC, which is the anti-money laundering supervisor for the estate agency sector.
This is up 3,329 from 16,730 in December 2021.
However, Thirdfort estimates that some 4,000 branches still need to register or complete renewal with HMRC.
It says government data puts the estate agency branch total in the UK at some 24,500 which suggests 18 per cent are still not registered with HMRC.
Thirdfort managing director Olly Thornton-Berry says: “Money laundering is a serious and growing risk in the property sector. It costs the UK more than £100 billion annually.
“As a result, HMRC and other regulators are stepping up their oversight. So, to avoid fines, reputational damage or even an outright ban, we would encourage all estate agents to register for money laundering supervision with HMRC.
“Once registered, agents do not need to worry about spending days or weeks complying with the regulations.”
The company says it’s verified over a million people on behalf of more than 1,000 conveyancers, lawyers, estate agents and other regulated professional services firms.
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There are 34,000 'companies' at Companies House who 'do' property and would need cover and at least another 7,500 companies that act as a Sole trader basis not registered there. So probably it is nearer 45,000 who should be registering, a shame that no-one has software to put that 'big' list together, I think Chat-GPT could do it in a few minutes if you asked the right questions / filtered out the fake data etc.
I wonder after all this work, how many arms dealers, drug dealers, terrorists etc, have been caught?
Probably none
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