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<p>The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 (MLRs) require regulated businesses, including
estate and lettings agents, to have robust controls in place to prevent abuse for
the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing. The MLRs are not prescriptive
in setting out how firms should carry out customer due diligence. However they do
require these firms, which are key facilitators of property transactions, to take
a proportionate and risk based approach to checks on all involved parties.</p><p>
</p><p>HMRC is the designated AML supervisor for estate and letting agents. HMRC provides
guidance to businesses to support compliance and has powers to enforce penalties in
response to breaches of the MLRs, including imposing fines.</p><p> </p><p>HM Treasury
published a review of the UK’s anti-money laundering/countering-terrorist financing
(AML/CTF) regulatory and supervisory regime in June 2022. This review assessed the
effectiveness of the MLRs and found that the regulations are comprehensive, robust
and allow for firms to take a risk-based approach to target their activity at the
areas of highest risk. It also set out plans for future work to strengthen the UK’s
AML regime, including a consultation on further reform to the supervisory regime.</p>
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