2 property agents found guilty of failing to carry out anti-money laundering checks

Oct 03, 2023

TWO property agents have been taken to task for not complying with the Estate Agents Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (PMLFT) Regulations 2021, and the Estate Agents Act.

Disclosing this in Parliament on Tuesday (Oct 3), Second Minister for National Development Indranee Rajah said: “These agents failed to comply with regulations relating to obtaining, documenting and verifying the accuracy of the identifying information of the buyers, and determining and documenting the risk assessment of clients engaging in money laundering or financing terrorism.”

The two of them were found guilty by the disciplinary committee of the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA).

One of them was handed a financial penalty of S$4,000; her registration was also suspended for four months in July 2023, Indranee said.

The two cases are unrelated to the ongoing S$2.8 billion money laundering probe.

Indranee was responding to supplementary questions posed by Members of Parliament He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC) and Gerald Giam (Aljunied GRC) on the role of property agents in conducting anti-money laundering checks, and how they will be dealt with if they fail to do so.

The PMLFT Regulations, which took effect in July 2021, require property agencies and property agents to undertake customer due-diligence measures when they are engaged by their clients to handle property transactions.

Agents are required to identify and verify the identity of their clients, and assess the risk of their clients being involved in money-laundering activities, CEA said in a response to queries from The Business Times last month.

Those who fail to comply with regulations can face disciplinary action, including financial penalties of up to S$200,000 per case for property agencies, and up to S$100,000 per case for property agents.

CEA may also suspend or revoke a property agency’s licence, or an agent’s registration.

In response to a question on whether the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) carries out customer due-diligence checks, Indranee replied that the agency does not undertake additional anti-money laundering (AML) checks on transactions.

“This would duplicate the existing customer due-diligence checks by real estate agents, developers and agencies. The conveyancing lawyers and the lawyers in the financial institutions also do checks. So, SLA is not the main interface with the people doing purchases, and hence, it doesn’t do AML checks.”

Under the Residential Property Act, foreigners are required to apply to SLA for approval to buy any landed residential property.

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