Offshore company buying residential property: KYB checklist

People search “offshore buyer AML real estate” when a Saturday open home ends with a buyer named as a company registered outside Australia, and the sales consultant asks for the representative's licence only. Checked against AUSTRAC's initial CDD guide for a body corporate on 4 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. This page does not reproduce that guidance. How far up the ownership chain you go is how to perform beneficial ownership checks. The harder look is enhanced customer due diligence. The sector map is /tranche-2.

The person at the open home is not the company

Agencies meet a person and contract with a company. When that company is registered offshore, the gap is wider, because the local representative may have no ownership at all. Customer due diligence follows the customer, and the customer on the contract is the company, and KYB is the check that matches. A personal check on the attendee identifies the attendee.

Your program, not this page, says how hard to look when the owner is overseas. Enhanced due diligence is that harder look, and it has its own page. Sanctions screening is another page again, and nothing here is a list of foreign registry extracts or stand-in identity documents. Collect what your program names, and do not invent a pack because the company is not Australian.

• Read the purchaser's name. If it is a company, stop treating the file as a person's purchase.
• KYB the company. The list price is the company price, including when the company is offshore. Do not invent a surcharge.
• Then the individuals. Ownership and control still end at people. The local contact is not a substitute for them.
• Let the program raise the look. Overseas ownership is a reason to use the harder path you already wrote, not a reason to refuse every foreign buyer on sight.

A checklist that sorts the file

Where the offshore-buyer page stops

This page is the shape of KYB for an offshore company on a residential purchase. It is not the ownership method, and it is not enhanced due diligence itself. Those are how to perform beneficial ownership checks and enhanced customer due diligence.

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. A foreign company does not create a third list price, so the KYB check remains the client-pays company check rather than a made-up offshore fee. Confirm the live amounts on FreeAML pricing. FreeAML does not complete KYB on a foreign company or decide the local representative is enough.

Frequently Asked Questions