Concern still rife ahead of FICA changes

There are a number of factors that can impact your decision making when it comes to buying or selling property in Carletonville, and if you stay up to date with the news of the Private Property website, you will feel fully prepared to enter the market.

One of the important matters on the cards for 2019 is the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) Amendment Act, which is scheduled to happen in April. However, there is growing concern as the deadline looms, with warnings that it could make transactions too complex.

This is causing a lot of concern amongst many estate agents, with their gripe being that they are yet to have full clarity on the changes being made, and there has not been enough, if any, guidance on implementation of the changes.

Jill Lloyd, who is an agent for Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty, pointed out that there is a large number of stipulations and mechanisms to come to grips with, and this will go on to impact the expense of transactions as well as the time required by the agency.

“At the moment we have more questions than answers and smaller or low-commission agencies especially could really struggle to achieve compliance by 1 April 2019. We urgently need more information if we are to abide by the law as well as service our clients to the proper standard.”

There is a good reason for putting these changes in place, with the hope being that it will have a major impact on money laundering, corruption and terrorist financing. And due to the stipulations, it means that nobody will be exempt to the procedure.

However, it places at lot more responsibility on the agency to get to know their client, as well as do due diligence in terms of finding out where and how the money has become available. This can be quite taxing, especially on smaller agencies, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out in April.