Purple Bricks charging for anti-money laundering checks

[Babychewtoy]

We are buying a house through PB and they are trying to charge £80 through a third party (lifetime legal) for anti-money laundering checks.

Has anyone successfully avoided being charged? Or negotiated a reduced price? Our estate agents for selling our house and our conveyancer have both done the check already.

And does anyone know if it is £80 total or £80 each for me and DH?

I know it’s not much money in comparison to all the expenses of buying / selling houses, it just annoys me that we’re being charged as buyers by the seller’s choice of estate agent.

Bought a house via a real estate agent (Dulwich branch of KFH) last year, and they were also ridiculously fussy about credit checks (thought tbf they didn’t charge us). They wanted more financial information than the mortgage company had asked for, not just for me but also for DH who wasn’t even buying the house (self employed, couldn’t prove income), and no, wouldn’t accept assurances from our solicitor.

Bank statements, itemised credit card statements, payslips, tax returns, all going straight to the actual EA via unsecured email, not to a separate company, which I was really unhappy with. I ended up complaining to head office actually, it was ridiculously intrusive. It just felt like a financial fishing expedition/opportunity to have my identity stolen.

I would really not be happy with sending all this information to an estate agent. One with which I haven't even contracted. Financial services companies are set up to be very careful with customer information and data. Estate agents can be a random one man band, and even if a chain they are just not set up to deal with this type of thing but is it their focus. I really don't see why Estate Agents need to be doing these checks if they are already being done by a solicitor and a mortgage provider. Obviously if someone is doing the conveyancing themselves and is a cash buyer, then maybe it's needed on these rare occasions but otherwise seems to be an unnecessary sharing of information/risk of identity fraud etc etc . I don't want a random estate agent having all my financial information. People need to start complaining about this to their MPs and the ICO, and absolutely refusing to send information by methods such as unencrypted email, or paying for the privilege!!!

Aside from anything else, is Ollie from Foxtons in any way equipped to identify money laundering from checking my credit card statements? I would say not. It’s just a ploy to get your financial data.

Exactly!

Purple Bricks are very cheap. Free in fact for their most basic service which doesn’t even include listing on Rightmove. They make their money by charging extra fees for everything and anything they can think of.

Also the problem with PB is that they get paid up front by the client. Therefore there’s not really any incentive for them to ensure the sale completes successfully, because they already have their money. Tradional estate agents only get paid when the deal completes.

This really.

I'm surprised they make it is as cheap as it is for AML fees because they have little incentive to do otherwise.

As a buyer you either have to suck it up or go somewhere else.

We were stung by the first agent we instructed for the money laundering checks. Paid £99 because we didn’t know better. When we found out, it was one of the reasons we sacked them. They were useless anyway.

Total scam. PB charging buyers for checks that should fall on the seller’s agent is just cheeky.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., their FinCEN agency is paying people 10–30% bounties for reporting real estate laundering. We’re getting charged to not be criminals
Read this and weep https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/10-important-facts-about-fincen-s-8972367/

We sold using PB in January and didn’t have this.
They did a basic check on whether they had the finances available. That’s all they need to do for the memorandum of sale. ( ie ask them but they have no right to check bank accounts etc ) Their conveyancer checks if the money is legit, not the Estate Agent
Plus the checks can take ages if the money is coming from different sources.

Check and see if this is mentioned as a requirement in your agreement with PB, personally I think they’re pulling a fast one to make more money. Not much is selling at the moment

All estate agents have to legally do the anti-money laundering checks on both buyers and sellers. And it will cost them to do this for the software they use. But probably an average of £5 per person checked.
and yes, the solicitors also then have to repeat then same checks.
Stupid system but they both have to do the checks.

We where buying a house 1.5 years ago and no money laundering checks at the EA level.

That fell through and we offered on another in March and this time had to pay £10 for anti-money laundering to the EA.

According to a quick google they are legally suppose to do this.

Please type following into Gemini chat bot etc.
When asking a solicitor to sell your house and buy another house, does the solicitor of the person selling their house to you need to do an identity check on you themselves?
The answer is NO

You have to laugh really. 99.99% of all transactions are probably good and valid and this whole system of AML is set up to catch the 0.01% that aren't. But you can pretty much be sure that that the 0.01% know how to avoid all the checks anyway. They're crooks after all!

Nail on the head.

It's like having to prove your ID and car ownership to get a new number plate at Halfords. The "professional" car thieves will have their own machine to do it themselves (or know someone else through the criminal network who'll have one!).

Criminal gangs will have dodgy solicitors, accountants, etc., "in their pocket" who'll turn a blind eye when necessary, and likewise give brown envelopes to bankers, council workers, police, etc.

All the money laundering legislation is doing is making life harder and more expensive for the 99% law abiding majority.

Always the way with these things!