Newsletter July 2018

AML Red Flags

We have recently published two documents which give information on ‘Red Flag Indicators’ to be aware of that may be warning signs of money laundering and terrorist financing. The lists are not intended to be a tick-list nor be exhaustive but may help you to consider which circumstances in your experience are unusual.

The first document outlines some of the high level AML red flag indicators as identified by the Financial Action Taskforce. The second document provides more detailed warning signs that you may come across in conveyancing transactions.

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Acting as Ancillary Insurance Intermediary update

We will be making changes to the relevant sections of the CLC Handbook to ensure all of CLC-regulated Practices will be compliant with the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) when it comes fully into force on 1 October 2018. You can see the changes in advance of them coming into force here.

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Potential Scam

We have been notified of a scam email sent after a completion purporting to come from the seller’s solicitor, asking that the money be sent to a different account. A copy of the scam email is below

Dear XXXXX,

Please kindly confirm if the transfer has been made to the HSBC account i have sent you as this is urgent due to a call i just received from our client to put a stop to the transfer into the HSBC bank details he has provided for the funds to be transferred to, as he has made a call through to his bank to confirm if such funds can be transferred to that account but they said no and has advice that he should provide another account for the funds transfer as the limit is below the funds that is to be transferred, please kindly respond to this email as this is urgent in other for us to avoid problem with the funds transfer.

Please see below the new account details he has provided.

Bank: Nationwide

Account Number: 35100872

Sort Code: 07-04-36

I hope that with this information we can deal with the exchange and formal completion as soon as possible this morning.

Regards,

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SDLT update from HMRC

HMRC has provided us with some tips for completion of the SDLT return and a reminder that from 1 March 2019 the payment window for submitting returns and paying any SDLT due is reducing from 30 days to 14 days from the effective date of the transaction. See more here.

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Local Land Charges

HM Land Registry (HMLR) has launched its new digital Local Land Charges Register in the area of Warwick District Council. This is an important and challenging part of the digitisation of land data to help improve the home buying and selling process. Anyone requiring local land charges searches in the local authority area of Warwick will need to get them from HM Land Registry rather than going to the council. HMLR are planning for up to 26 local authorities’ Local Land Charge registers to be transferred to the new digital register by March 2019. A timetable of local authorities and their transfer dates is available on HMLR’s GOV.UK pages.

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New initiative leads the way to best practice conveyancing process

A new initiative recently has been launched in Northern Ireland which aims to make the process of buying and selling homes much smoother for consumers. Jointly developed by The Law Society of Northern Ireland, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and NAEA Propertymark, the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) sets out commitments which seek to improve communications during the conveyancing process. CLC and NAEA Propertymark are working together with leading firms of conveyancers and other relevant parties and industry bodies to drive similar initiatives across England and Wales.