AML
What we need from you
AML is a term you may have heard before, or may be totally new to. It’s a mandated regulation used by all real estate salespeople in New Zealand and will often differ from agency to agency based on risk-based decisions.
What does it actually mean and how does it affect you, if you’re trying to sell your property?
To comply with the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009, we are required to conduct Customer Due Diligence (CDD) on any of our clients before conducting any real estate activities or marketing their property.
We can obtain the necessary information from you in a few different ways:
An in-person meeting
Receiving a certified copy of the necessary documents (certified by a Justice of the Peace or equivalent authority within three months of today’s date), or
We can provide you a with an electronic link for you to complete the necessary steps yourself
Please let us know which option is most convenient for you.
Below, you will find a handy FAQ’s section, plus some downloadable guides/checklists, which outline everything we need from you and how you can get it to us, whether you’re an individual, or individuals, a trust or a company.
Individual ownership
(A property that is not owned by a trust or company)
For each owner, with more than 25% ownership, we require the following:
Proof of ID
A passport is the preferred form of ID. Alternatively, you can provide a copy of the front and back of your New Zealand driver’s license. The back is required as quite often the expiry date is here.
Proof of address
We require a document, such as a rates bill or document that must display your name, your current residential address and it must be dated within 12 months of the date that you provide this proof to us.
Company ownership
If your property is owned by a company, we need the following from any director or shareholder with more than 25% ownership:
Proof of ID
A passport is the preferred form of ID. Alternatively, you can provide a copy of the front and back of your New Zealand driver’s license. The back is required as quite often the expiry date is here.
Proof of address
As with individuals, we require a document, such as a rates bill or document that must display your name, your current residential address and it must be dated within 12 months of the date that you provide this proof to us.
In addition to this, you will also need to tell us if there are any nominee directors or nominee shareholders within this company.
Trust ownership
For properties held in a trust, we need the following from each trustee:
Proof of ID
A passport is the preferred form of ID. Alternatively, you can provide a copy of the front and back of your New Zealand driver’s license. The back is required as quite often the expiry date is here.
Proof of address
We require a document, such as a rates bill or document that must display your name, your current residential address and it must be dated within 12 months of the date that you provide this proof to us.
Trust Deed
We will need a copy of the Trust Deed - this is to identify the trustees and any beneficiaries of the trust.
Source of Wealth/Source of Funds
Recent AML guidance means that enhanced customer due diligence is no longer required for certain low-risk trust structures. For example, a husband-and-wife family trust holding one or two family homes will generally not require enhanced CDD.
However, enhanced CDD is still required for trusts that fall outside a simple low-risk structure. This may include, for example, more complex trust arrangements, trusts with company ownership involvement, or companies where a trust forms part of the ownership structure.
Where enhanced CDD is required, we are still required to ask where the trust obtained its wealth and the source of funds used to purchase the property we are completing CDD on.
This information can be provided to us as a simple statement and does not need to be provided in a formal letter from an accountant or solicitor. We will record the information provided in AMLHub as part of the CDD process.
For example:
“The Smith Family Trust purchased the property using cash savings and a mortgage. The Trust obtained its wealth through employment income, savings and the previous sale of investment property.”
Please provide the requested information based on your property’s ownership structure. If you have any questions or need further clarification, please feel free to get in touch with us. Ensuring compliance with AML regulations is important and we appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
AML FAQs
What is AML?
AML/CFT (Anti-money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorisom Act).
These regulations came into force for all real estate transactions completed by all real estate agencies within New Zealand from the 1st January 2019. Customer Due Diligence (CDD) must be completed before real estate agency work can begin.
Why do we ask you to do this?
In short, we need to… Unfortunately this is not an optional process and we understand that it may seem a bit intrusive (as we’re gathering up all of your most important documents), but rest assured, we take the utmost care to protect all of your personal information.
Each real estate agency was tasked with developing a risk-based program to ensure each agency met their compliance with the AML/CFT Act 2019.
Our compliance program has been developed to identify, understand and assess the risks of money laundering and financing terrorism for our business and in doing this we need to collect some information from you. or anyone associated with this property in terms of trustees, directors, shareholders or, in some cases, beneficiaries.
The AML/CFT Act requires us to know our clients (by gathering CDD – customer due diligence) and catorgorise clients based on risk and, based on the act, some clients are automatically higher risk than others, specifically trusts and trustees. In these circumstances we will need more detail before we can commence listing and marketing your property.
What will we ask you to provide?
To prepare and ensure we are on track/ready to go, we will ask you to supply us with the following for AML purposes, which is legally required prior to your listing agreement being signed:
For individuals – an individual or individuals listed on a title, where a property is not owned by a trust or company.
Proof of ID (POI) - The best proof of ID is a Passport (preferred), NZ Firearms license.
If no passport, we can take a drivers license as long as it is accompanied by a secondary source of identification (birth certificate/18+ Card/Electronic verification/Bank Card – showing your name/Bank Statement/Any letter from the IRD)
Proof of Address (POA) - The best proof of address is a rates bill or power bill, phone bill, etc. This must show your current address.
Please ensure your passport is valid and is signed
Drivers license – we need the front and the back (as the back usually details the expiry date)
POA – this needs to be your current address and we need to have POA for anyone who is listed on the title. This proof of address must be dated within 12 months from when you give this to us.
If you are unable to come into the office with these documents, you will need someone to certify your documents. Certification – if required - must be done within three months from when you give this to us.
Who can certify your documents?
There are a number of people who can certify documents, if you are unable to come into the office and have to email the documents to us:
Justice of the Peace, member of the Police, Doctor, Teacher, Lawyer or Chartered Accountant.
The date of certification needs to be within three months from today’s date and they must use the following statement to certify your documents:
“I hereby certify that this is a true copy of the original document, which I have sighted, and it represents a true likeness of [Individual’s Name]”
What's the difference between "Source of Wealth" and "Source of Funds"?
Where due diligence is required - for all trusts - we require both to be provided by you.
To accurately describe Source of Funds there needs to reference a sentence to say how the property was purchased, something along the lines of:
• the property was purchased from funds from the trust
• the property was purchased using a mortgage and funds from the trust
To accurately describe Source of Wealth there needs to reference a sentence to say how the funds were accumulated for the trust (over time), something along the lines of:
• the trust bought and sold 4 properties over time to accumulate wealth…
• The trust originally inherited a property from family…
• The trust purchased using funds saved over time and further accumulated due to rental income…
(The source of wealth and source of funds needs to be formally written ideally by your accountant or your solicitor but cannot be signed off by your accountant/solicitor if they are your trustee. Please ask if another person within their firm if they can sign this off for them. This should be on letterhead.)
Do you need to complete AML if you've done this with us before?
If you have completed AML with us in the last 12 months you will not need to do this again.
If it has been longer that 12 months, or if your circumstances have changed (you have got married or divorced), you will have to do it again.
What happens if you don't provide us with the required information?
In short, we cannot proceed with any transactions if we don’t have all of the outlined documents from you. Speak to your Bayleys agent if you have any quesitons or concerns about supplying any information.
How do we protect your information?
We will take steps as required by applicable laws to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorized activity, or other misuse.
We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risks inherent in processing personal information.
Only certain people within our organisation are authorised to log into our system, which has levels of password protection for each user. Nothing can be shared in or out of our secure system without your authority.
Can't meet us in person? Is there another way to provide your documents?
Yes, we can send you a link via Real Me or an electronic identity link that will require you to take a photo of yourself and your license.
If your passport is expired, can you still use it?
No. However, we can use other documents, such as your driver’s license, birth certificate or gun license.
Can your "Source of Wealth" and "Source of Funds" letter be done by your accountant who is your professional trustee?
Ideally, we need to have someone who isn’t within the trust, to remove any conflict of interest. If this trustee is the only person who can verify the trust’s wealth and funds then please talk to us.
Have you just listed your property with another agency, who never asked you for this?
The AML/CFT Act is a risk based document that enables each company to do different things based on risk. Every company should ask you to provide documentation as this is a requirement, by law. However, the various forms required may change based on each company’s program.
Let us break it down for you
Download the full AML handbook by clicking the button below