Commercial leasing: sale or transfer versus lease

People search “commercial lease AML designated service” when a two-partner firm has been asked to prepare a commercial lease and someone has called it a property transfer. Checked against AUSTRAC’s professional designated services on 4 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. This page does not reproduce that guidance. How to read an item is on the designated services decision tree. The broader list language is on designated services under the Act. The sector map is /tranche-2.

The document, then the verb

Professional designated services that touch property are framed around dealings such as selling, buying, or transferring. A commercial lease grants a term of possession. It is not, by that description alone, a sale of the freehold. A firm that only prepares leases should not assume it is in.

It also should not assume it is out, because the particular instruction may be an assignment or another dealing that does match a verb in the item. Write the document type on the file in ordinary words: new lease, variation, surrender, or assignment. Then read the item. If you cannot tell, the compliance officer decides before anyone sends an identity link or skips one; this page does not number the item and does not rule on a shopping-centre lease, a retail shop, or an assignment of either.

• Say lease or sale out loud. If the instruction is a lease, do not minute it as a transfer to make the checklist easier.
• Pull assignments out. An assignment is the row that gets mislabelled. Give it its own line.
• Do not inherit the landlord’s status. The landlord’s other sales do not convert this lease into one.
• Record the decision. In, out, or escalated. A silent file is how the next lease copies the wrong answer.

Four dealings on a leasing desk

A two-partner firm can keep this sort on the leasing precedent. It stops a locum treating every retail shop as a transfer, and it stops a busy week treating an assignment as “just another lease.”

Where the leasing page stops

This page is the difference between a lease and a sale or transfer. It is not the decision tree and it is not the Act’s full list. Those are the designated services decision tree and designated services under the Act. FreeAML does not classify the lease.

The firm suite is A$0. If the program says a party must be verified, the client pays that check.

What the client pays

On FreeAML the firm suite is A$0. The firm emails the client a link. Verification is client-pays. On the public list a personal KYC check is A$20 and a company or trust KYB check is A$40. Use KYB when the customer is a company or a trust. The firm suite does not include classifying a lease, and a lease opinion is not a check. Confirm the live amounts on FreeAML pricing. FreeAML does not decide that a commercial lease is a designated service.

Frequently Asked Questions