March 2018 Newsletter

ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING

Practices should by now have fully implemented the requirements of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017, which came into effect on 26^th June 2017. We are concerned that recent practice inspections have found that several practices have not taken appropriate steps.

Please make sure that your firm takes action immediately if you have not already done so. You will be protecting yourself and your business reputation as well as helping to combat crime.

We have provided guidance, but if you have any queries please contact your Regulatory Supervision Manager using the email address monitoring@clc-uk.org

FLAG IT UP!

The CLC has also joined the Home Office Flag It Up! Campaign to encourage the reporting of suspicious activity that may point to money laundering.

Find out more

Download a poster to raise colleagues’ awareness of money laundering

Read our guidance

WHY ISN’T COMMONHOLD MORE COMMON?

The Law Commission has published a Call for Evidence on Commonhold, which is available to download from their website, along with a summary and an optional response form, at www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/residential-leasehold-and-commonhold/.

It has been possible to create commonholds since 2004, but hardly any commonholds have been set up. The Law Commission wants to find out why to inform its project to reform the law of commonhold.

The call for evidence is open until Thursday 19 April 2018.

Find out more

HM LAND REGISTRY LEASEHOLD EXTENSION TRIAL

A reminder that, until the end of March, HM Land Registry is trialling a new internal process for completing applications to extend the term of a lease.

For lease extension applications that are part of the trial, the title plan and title register you receive will have the same title number as the original lease. That’s because HMLR will re-use the existing leasehold title number, adding all the relevant information, rather than create a new title.

Conveyancers do not need to change what you do.

HM Land Registry report that initial findings have shown:

• a reduction in the time taken to complete these applications; and
• customers feeling they had greater transparency because the title number remained the same.

HMLR have widened the trial to cover all the lease extensions completed at the Durham and Plymouth offices, to see whether the change can make the process simpler, faster and cheaper for everyone.

HM Land Registry would welcome feedback about the trial and would like to hear from you if you have any concerns: customer.service@landregistry.gov.uk

CLC CONFERENCE 2019 – SAVE THE DATE

Eight out of ten of who attended our conference in January said they would definitely take part again next year.

Next year’s conference is on Wednesday, 23^rd January, 2019 at Etc. Venues, County Hall, London.

Reserve your place now.

FASTER PAYMENTS

Further to the February update regarding plans to increase the Faster Payment Scheme Transaction limit to £20m, the Scheme and Participants have completed all the necessary work and are technically and operationally ready for implementation.

However, they are required to seek formal ‘non-objection’ from the Financial Markets Infrastructure Directorate (FMID) at the Bank of England and this request has been submitted.  They have advised the Scheme that they are unable to confirm timelines for a response but have indicated their review will not be complete until May 2018 at the earliest.

Faster Payments are now working to identify a suitable date after May in Q2/Q3 2018 for implementation, taking care to avoid any time when other changes are underway.  They expect to provide an update on the actual implementation once FMID have responded to the non-objection request.

In the meantime, agency banks and service users who would be looking to take advantage of a higher limit in the future should contact their sponsoring institution/PSP to establish whether they are planning to increase their limit and to what level.

If you have any further questions about this change please contact Development@fasterpayments.org.uk