HMRC is a supervisory body for money laundering regulations, of which all estate agents need to be registered with. As part of this, there are multiple requirements that agents must rigorously and consistently meet to ensure they stay compliant with the regulations and protect their clients. To do this, we use an electronic identity verification service, approved by the Government as part of the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF).
This method and the process we follow to ensure compliance for your transaction come with significant time, financial and legal implications hence a portion of this is passed on to our clients. We elected for the electronic verification process due to the speed, certainty, and accuracy it delivers. This helps us to protect all our client's interests by using the most advanced verification process to help prevent the impacts of money laundering alongside our internal manual policies and procedures while staying compliant with HMRC. This is why we have added the charge for this legally required service.