Do buyer’s agents verify the seller as well as the buyer?

The customer follows the broking, not the retainer

Buyer’s agents are hired by the purchaser. That commercial fact is real, and it is not the AML customer test. AUSTRAC’s step-by-step for using a real estate program says that if you act for the seller and broker the successful sale, your customers are the buyer and the seller. If you act for the buyer and broker the successful purchase, your customers are again the buyer and the seller. Read that on the starter kit page. The kit is AUSTRAC’s practical guidance for eligible agencies. It is not a court judgment, and it tells you to take advice on your own facts.

Practitioners are asking the same question in public. This property-forum thread is the worry, not the rule. The wider role map, including conveyancers and solicitors, is who is the customer on a real estate sale. Sector context is on /tranche-2.

Verify means customer due diligence

A licence check on the buyer who briefed you can finish a verification-of-identity step and still leave the seller untouched. Forms Live’s note on CDD and VOI is the property-industry version of that gap. Initial CDD, in AUSTRAC’s overview, is how you establish identity, people behind a company or trust, PEP and sanctions status, and the nature and purpose of the service, and how you record it. The day-to-day agent workflow on this site is AML checks for real estate agents.

• Buyer who is an individual: customer due diligence on that person.
• Seller who is an individual: the same kind of file, because the starter kit puts them on the customer list when you broker the purchase.
• Seller that is a company or trust: the entity, the people who own or control it, and anyone acting for it. The director who answers the email may own nothing.
• A passed open-home identity check: useful evidence. It is not the seller file.

Reliance is a written path, not a screenshot

The listing agency may already be doing customer due diligence on the vendor. That can be the sensible seller-side record, if your program allows reliance and the arrangement meets AUSTRAC’s reliance guidance. The starter kit sits next to that guidance. Keep your own note of why you relied, what you received, and the risk rating you still own. A photo of someone else’s VOI certificate, with no arrangement and no record, is not reliance.

When the seller may be outside your file

Some buyer’s agents are paid for search, shortlisting, and negotiation advice, and another licensee brokers the contract. If you never broker the purchase, do not borrow the “both parties” sentence and staple it to a search retainer. Write down the service you actually provide, compare it with the regulated real estate service in the starter kit, and get advice if the retainer is mixed. A mixed authority that includes broking the purchase pulls the seller onto the customer list for that broking.

What to send

1. Tell the buyer, in the authority, that broking the purchase makes the seller a customer for your AML/CTF program as well as them.
2. Email the buyer their own verification. Email the seller, or the listing agent under a reliance arrangement, rather than assuming the buyer’s check covers the vendor.
3. If the seller is a company or trust, say so before a second check goes out.
4. File the outcome and the reason next to the risk note. The cost conversation is separate from the customer decision.

Frequently Asked Questions