An agent attempting to renew his firm’s registration for anti-money laundering supervision has called for much clearer guidance from HMRC.
Terry Holmes, of Essex-based agents Beresfords, was given a string of contradictory instructions.
He spent hours last year completing the registration on behalf of his firm and because detailed information was required about individual directors – some of whom were away – the process was spread over several weeks.
Holmes said that in addition, flawed design of the registration meant that when one person started filling in their section, no one else could enter any information.
On top of that, Holmes says that registration proved impossible at the last moment because the HMRC system fell over.
He was, however, cheered by being told that in future, only a quick renewal would be required.
However, this year has proved a catalogue of problems.
First, he was contacted by HMRC telling him to log in to a given link to renew the registration.
However, the link simply went to a registration process.
Additionally, when he used the Government Gateway account used for the registration last year, it would not let him renew anyway. It simply took him to a page that said the firm was already registered.
To get into the new registration process, he had to set up a completely new Government Gateway account.
After querying these problems, Holmes was told: “We are in the process of developing a new digital service and unfortunately we cannot migrate any existing data into the new service.
“Although you are technically renewing your supervision, we will require you to complete the registration process.
“The annual renewal process will be much more streamlined once we have a record of all your data.
“If you use the link which you have been sent to submit a registration, this will form your renewal.”
HMRC then, however, contradicted that advice two days later saying that Beresfords’ existing data was saved and still active.
However, Holmes told EYE that he had to tell HMRC that their website didn’t distinguish between agents already registered and those not registered.
He said: “If you were registered it took you to your registration page but with nowhere to go from there. That’s because HMRC forgot to mention that the renew option only appears 30 days before the renewal date and we were trying to do it before then but we were only told that two days later.
“It would have made sense to put that in the original renewal notification. Instead we were wasting time trying to work out what we were doing wrong.”
He has now received notification that HMRC’s AMLS team will look into the concerns this week.
EYE also took up the matter with HMRC.
A spokesperson said that they could not comment on individual cases, but added: “Businesses renewing through the online anti-money laundering supervision service will be required to ensure their details are updated as appropriate as well as answer some additional questions about their business activities in the past 12 months.”
Anti-Money Laundering Supervision registration needs to be applied for by estate agents and then renewed every year. HMRC believes that the initial registration should take between 30 to 45 minutes.
It is a criminal offence for agents to carry out work requiring them to be registered under the Money Laundering Regulations if they are unregistered.
* Have you had a battle with registration or renewal? We would be interested to hear other agents’ experiences.
Comments (8)
Perhaps our professional body – NAEA – would take up the cudgel on behalf of their membership and communicate with the appropriate civil servant to sort this mess out. Anyone from Warwick like to comment?
I’m reminded of this thread…
https://twitter.com/JBwol/status/957252002584711168
Try universal credit!
I echo what has been said above. Whilst it remains a legal necessity (and rightly so), the system is a nightmare to use. One shining example is that won’t accept your company name if you type ‘Ltd’ if it’s officially registered as ‘Limited’ or, ‘Limited’ if registered at Companies House as ‘Ltd’.
The registration process is absolutely horrendous. The system is not fit for purpose and the phone support is hopeless. What should be a straightforward job to register/renew is time consuming, frustrating and fraught with problems.
This is doing my head in too. The process is complicated and confusing. There appears to be no helpline and an email I responded to requiring comment has not been responded to.
I spent 2 hours unsuccessfully trying to re-register last Friday, then gave up, completed frustrated and angry that it should be so difficult to comply.
With steam coming out of my ears, I was all set to start trying to re-register again this morning when I was relieved to see this post.
Thank goodness it is not just me.
It isn’t good enough. If a Government Department can’t help us to help them how on earth can they expect to tackle Money Laundering effectively.
The powers that be threaten us with fearful consequences if we fall foul of their rigid requirements – Can someone in authority please rattle THEIR cage?l
It’s first thing Monday morning and I should be doing all I can to stay alive, selling houses in an ever tougher market – Not wasting my valuable time trying to complete a stupidly complicated Government form and, incidentally, paying them money for the privilege.
“It is a criminal offence for agents to carry out work requiring them to be registered under the Money Laundering Regulations if they are unregistered.”
Yet hundreds remain unregistered and NTSEAT, TPO, NAEA etc, seem perfectly happy to take these firms subscriptions, payments to speak at their conferences etc.
I have been asked to clarify my comments above which I am happy to do. It was not my intention to imply that NTSEAT took subscriptions or payments to speak at conferences by any company, however I agree that my post could be interpreted that way. Accordingly, I am happy to apologise and set the record straight and state that I did not intend to give that impression nor should any reader infer that implication from my post or this response.