X-Press Legal Services is urging conveyancing professionals to ensure they are wholly compliant following HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) latest crackdown on estate agents.
Last week saw the announcement that 68 estate agents had been fined a total of £519,645 for breaching anti-money laundering (AML) requirements following HMRC investigations.
“We’ve been expecting HMRC to take action on this scale for a while and very much expect that the conveyancing sector is also under scrutiny,” commented Dave Lister, MD of X-Press Legal Services. Cracking down on economic crime is something every hard-working business should applaud, but equally we understand that conveyancing pressures and caseloads can sometimes lead to AML checks being missed.
“We don’t want to see any conveyancers stung by HMRC fines and such fines can be easily avoided. Having invested heavily in R&D, we know that digitalisation is the best solution to ensuring compliance and our clients are unlikely to fall foul of HMRC. Our latest conveyancing products have been developed to eliminate human error, combining complete probity with digital efficiency to deliver piece of mind throughout every single transaction.”
X-Press Legal Services is urging conveyancing professionals to ensure they are fully compliant throughout all transactions to avoid falling foul of AML and wider compliance regulations such as Source of Funds checks.
It recommends conveyancers use one portal to access and complete all due diligence and compliance products and has developed its own free Intelligent Conveyancing Online System (ICOS). ICOS encompasses a full suite of due diligence and compliance products available 24/7.
Included within ICOS is Quotation Management Platform (QMP) a system which would have protected estate agents from their recent penalties. The secure cloud-based platform offers a bespoke client onboarding and case tracking solution for collaborative conveyancing transactions. This includes AML checks and proven evidence trail of source of funds for SRA compliance, regulated by the FCA.
“In an ever-changing regulatory landscape, we very much see our role as one that protects both our clients’ reputations and their transactions,” added Dave. “QMP incorporates automatic market and legislative updates, meaning users can focus on other aspects of their workloads, safe in the knowledge that every transaction is fully compliant. The system is creating seamless new relationships between all property stakeholders, streamlining transactions to the benefit of all parties and ensuring nothing falls outside of compliance.”