The anti-money laundering law or AML is designed, among other things, to prevent real estate transactions associated with a risk of money laundering or terrorist financing. Therefore, it implies three major obligations for real estate professionals.

Duty of care

The duty of care entails knowing your client as well as their agent and economic beneficiaries in the case of a legal entity. This "knowledge" is gained by checking identity documents, but also by answering a series of questions.

The requests have to assess the risk of money laundering from the beginning of the business relationship and not during a subsequent control by the banks or notaries.

Vigilance must then be ongoing. The real estate professional is responsible for monitoring all transactions and identifying unusual occurrences. To perform these checks, the agent is allowed to take "reasonable" steps. For example, the agent has the ability to review the records of partners and shareholders if the buyer, lessor or seller of a property is a corporation.

Finally, the professional must edit and keep vigilance monitoring files for a minimum of 5 years. These files include the customer's identity documents as well as all elements describing the property (plans, photos, cadastral data, etc.) and the transaction (provisional agreement, bank agreement, etc.).

Setting up an internal organization

To meet their new obligations, real estate professionals must change their internal practices and organization. For instance, they may classify their clients based on their risk profile as low, medium or high.

These developments are also subject to the anti-money laundering law. In particular, agents are required to draw up an internal procedural manual outlining all the measures taken to detect and limit risks. The document must be accessible to all their employees.

In addition to referring to this manual, the employees of real estate professionals must attend a training course on the anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing (AML/ATF). This initial awareness is to be completed by a legal and informational follow-up.

Finally, the anti-money laundering law requires the appointment of a compliance officer, i.e. an internal AML/ATF officer. This individual must already be in a high hierarchical position in the real estate agency or company. He/she is the focal point for communication with the authorities.

Cooperation with the authorities

The third pillar of the anti-money laundering law is the cooperation between real estate professionals and the authorities. This cooperation is achieved by attending and complying with file checks or possibly on-the-spot checks carried out by the Administration of Registration, Domains and VAT (ARD).

This collaboration is also proactive. If there is any doubt about a client or a transaction, the agent must immediately alert their compliance officer. The latter will then document all the information obtained and draft a suspicious transaction report (STR) to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

This report is essential to clear the real estate agency's liability in cases of suspected money laundering or terrorist financing. All transactions must be paused pending the FIU's decision.

In the event of non-compliance or refusal to cooperate, real estate professionals may be subject to sanctions ranging from a warning to the permanent withdrawal of their license by the Minister of the Economy.