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Hi everybody - George Sourris, Empire Legal.

Today's topic: New Anti-Money Laundering & date announcement for New Sellers Disclosure Regime!

Last Friday, the 20th of September 2024, the Queensland Law Society hosted their annual Property Law Conference at Brisbane's Sofitel. Among some of the speakers was the CEO of the Queensland Law Society, Matt Dunn, and Les Vance, the CEO of PEXA. Today, I'm going to share some of the key takeaways from the day.

Firstly, the hot topic that everyone has probably seen in the media at the moment is all about the new anti-money laundering (AML) laws that are coming into play.

From the 31st of March 2026 (about 18 months away from now), the schedule will extend to real estate agents and professional advisors. The provision specifically includes: brokering the sale, purchase or transfer of real estate with the customer being the seller and the buyer.

So what's that all mean? Real estate agents - a change is coming. You will have a legal obligation to comply with these new anti-money laundering laws and validly identify and follow the processes for not only your vendor, but also your purchaser.

This also extends to lawyers and other professional services. We've seen recently multiple Australian lawyers being convicted for anti-money laundering. One of the more interesting cases is a former Queensland lawyer who was charged with money laundering $4.5 million and allegedly trafficking 120 kilos of cocaine in a van of frozen chickens. This is actually a true story, you can Google it. Over the past few years, the government has been working to build a process to better identify dirty money. 

Now the reason why professionals are being lumped with this extra responsibility is because we are a gateway used by the criminals to gain access to traditional financial institutions whose services are required to facilitate money laundering. 

Other professional services businesses that are likely to be impacted include: accountants, financial planners, business brokers and insolvency practitioners. These new laws will oblige these professionals, alongside lawyers and real estate agents, to register as a reporting entity and report any suspicious activity for anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing to the Government.

For now, that's all we know. Obviously, when we know more, we're going to update everybody. Best way to keep updated is to subscribe to the blog. You can go to blog.empirelegal.com.au and there's a "subscribe now" button if you're not already subscribed. 

Okay, now, second half of the chat from the Property Law Conference was all about the New Disclosure Regime.

So, I know we've spoken about this in the past. It's gotten a lot of media time as well. The Property Law Act of  2023 has a new proclamation date of the 1st of August 2025. This was announced officially only last Friday, the 20th of September. You may remember a few weeks back I was talking about how this got delayed and they didn't have an official date.

Well, now they do. It's next year, 01 August 2025. This is the date we've been waiting for, right? So where the New Disclosure Regime will come into play for Queensland properties. If you're unsure what any of this means, or if you want to know more, there is a link here on past content explaining the nuts and bolts.

Okay. Now the majority of these new provisions apply to contracts that will be dated after the 1st of August 2025.

So real estate agents, listen up. This is game changing and it's less than a year away. Now I'm not trying to freak anybody out. You just have to keep in mind that this is coming and it's unavoidable. We don't know exactly how the rollout is going to happen with logistics yet, but again, once we know more, we will pass that on. 

There's going to be education we're going to put out. For our good referral partners, obviously, we will come and talk to you guys, update you, answer any questions that you have. That is, of course, one of the major perks of working alongside Empire Legal is that amazing support you get from myself and our skilled property team.

There are a few other bits and pieces from this conference, but for the purposes of today, I'm going to wrap it up there and I'll put mini snippets out. Best place is on our Instagram, if you want to follow along and keep up to date. Please, please, please give us a subscribe to YouTube. We're almost at 500 followers. Our goal is 1000. It'd be great if we could get there in the next 6 months.

Thanks everyone. Have a great day.  

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George Sourris. Empire Legal.

If you have any questions, you can email me: george@empirelegal.com.au. 

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Thanks for reading everybody. See you on the next one.

Ladies and gentlemen, please keep in mind that all advice is general in nature and does not constitute legal advice. This is authorised by George Sourris, Empire Legal, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

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Note: all information is general in nature and as each matter is unique please contact our office for tailored advices: the above does not constitute legal advice.