Due to the Sanctions in place for Agencies to perform AML checks against LL/Tenants will there be a charge back to us the Landlords by Openrent?
Openrent is a listing platform in that capacity they arent handling any £ so hard to see how AML checks apply
As a letting agent OR collects rent but there has been legislation since 2017 so there’s nothing new? Estate_and_letting_agency_business_guidance_money_laundering_supervision_240130-1__1_.odt
If Openrent wasnt doing checks correctly and got sanctioned why would that be anything to do with LLs/tenants ?
Think AML more important for estate agencies [property purchase/sales] where things have certainly tightened up in recent years [with more checks needed for both agents and solicitors]
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OR offer rent collection dont they?
Yes and when they create a contract they also collect holding deposit and 1st month rent balance, and security deposit
Think AML checks are generally for eg large cash amounts.
Most LLs wont be collecting rent with transactions of £10,000 or more tho (despite rent rises)
Anyway @Amanda72 gives no reason to suggest Openrent haven’t been doing all the right AML checks already or that they are going to face lots of Sanctions (assume these are fines?). A lot of the time checks will be done by LLs too (ie ID checks, understanding the sources of income)
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All letting agencies are required to comply with the financial sanctions reporting though, regardless of the amount of rent they may collect. This means that some level of due dilligence checking would almost certainly need to be done on landlords and tenants.
I assume OR has some process it undertakes, possibly agreed with the OFSI. I also assume that since this requirement has been in place since 2025, that OR has absorbed any costs into their fee structure. I suppose that if they ever get asked to collect rent for a property costing £10k or more a month, (unlikely as this would put it outside the assured tenancy regime), they may decline or charge extra.
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Think they have to do some risk assessment and have processes and nominated staff in place to report anything suspicious ie what it says here
And agree they will include already in costs they charge
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