Why is Anti Money Laundering Check So Important?
On October 28 2021, the National Crime Agency (NCA) announced that they had filed civil claims against a Chinese mother and two sons in the name of suspected money laundering, and successfully asked them to hand over a London property worth 1.6 million pounds for compensation.
National Crime Agency (NCA) is a law enforcement agency in the UK. This agency is the UK’s leading agency in combating criminal groups. It mainly combats organised crime and economic crime, including human trafficking, weapons and drugs, cybercrime, as well as economic crime across regional and international borders etc.
A woman named Mrs Hajiyeva was previously investigated by The National Crime Agency, they issued her an "Unidentified Wealth Order" (UWO) and asked her to explain and prove the source of her large amount of funds. The lady was unable to explain the legal source of her funds, thus, the National Crime Agency confiscated her luxury house in London.
What is the "Unidentified Wealth Order" (UWO)?
UWO refers to "Unexplained Wealth Order", which is a court order issued by a British court to enable the target person to disclose the unknown source of wealth. The relevant requirement for issuing an "unknown wealth order" is that the court must be convinced that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the target person's known legal source of income is insufficient to enable him/her to obtain such a large amount of funds. After the National Crime Bureau and other law enforcement agencies successfully appeal to the High Court, the assets of people who fail to explain the source of their wealth may be seized and bank accounts may be frozen.
We have discussed in a previous article that many students’ bank accounts were frozen by the National Crime Agency or Police in the name of suspected money laundering due to private currency exchanges. Therefore, we once again remind students studying in the UK to use private currency exchange services carefully and not to be involved in money laundering investigations which could affect their studies. If you want to learn more about what to do if your bank account is frozen because of private exchange, you can click here to view the article.
What is Anti-Money Laundering Regulations (AML)?
Anti-money laundering legislation is a piece of legislation aimed at illegal money laundering. Money laundering refers to the illegal act of converting illegally obtained funds into legal funds or concealing the illegal source of funds. The purpose of the anti-money laundering law is to prevent money laundering activities that conceal and conceal the proceeds of crimes, such as drug crimes, organised crimes, terrorist activities, smuggling crimes, corruption and bribery crimes etc., through various means.
The process of money laundering usually includes the following 3 stages:
- Placement: Put "dirty money" into the legal financial system while hiding its source.
- Layering: This step is also known as "structuring". It hides the source of funds through a series of transactions and accounting techniques, and breaks down the funds into small transactions, making money laundering activities difficult to detect.
- Integration: After the laundered money becomes legal funds, it is withdrawn from legal accounts and real records, and then large-scale consumption, investment, etc are carried out.
In the United Kingdom, companies must abide by anti-money laundering laws. The anti-money laundering regulations in the United Kingdom stipulate that all industries that involve large amounts of capital must take a series of measures to prevent their businesses from being used for money laundering or terrorist financing purposes. For example, in the gaming industry, the UK government imposes very strict supervision. For casinos and online gambling platforms that do not have due diligence to investigate the source of customer's funds, the UK gaming regulator - the UK Gambling Commission will enforce penalties.
- In April 2020, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) imposed a fine of £13 million on Caesars Entertainment (now acquired by Silver Point Capital), which is the largest regulatory fine in the UK. Caesars Entertainment was punished on the grounds that it allowed a VIP registered as a high-risk gambler to place bets without investigating the source of funds, and lost £795,000. It also failed to investigate the source of funds for a lady who claimed to be a waiter and allowed her to bet £87,000. Additionally, allowed a customer to transfer £3.5 million through the casino without investigating the source and destination of funds, etc. In addition to being punished with huge fines, three senior managers of Caesars Entertainment in the UK also had their personal licenses revoked.
- March 2021, the British Gaming Corporation (UKGC) fined online casino and sports betting operator Casumo with a fine of 6 million to the Gaming Commission for anti-money laundering defaults in the United Kingdom. The casino operator must investigate the client's funds. And Casumo caused at least 5 customers to lose a huge amount of gambling money without investigating the source of customer funds.
In addition to the gambling industry, the real estate industry also involves a large amount of funds in every transaction. Therefore, the British government also urges real estate agencies and real estate transaction lawyers to check every client's funds. Especially funds from abroad, including those from areas with frequent and high-risk terrorist activities and areas with more serious bribery.
At present, the UK's anti-money laundering laws are becoming more and more stringent for financial service providers. For example, banks will always check the source of any large sum of funds in your account. If you plan to buy a house in the UK, we recommend that you prepare relevant documents and materials in advance and cooperate with a conveyancing solicitor for checking your source of funds. At the same time, we also recommend that you contact your bank manager in advance to avoid the bank from misunderstanding the large amount of money you have transferred for house purchases, which may cause your account to freeze.
If you have any questions about buying a house, investing in the UK and AML investigations, please contact us. Our team speak English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish etc.
Saving Your Credit Score from Unforeseen Court Judgments
Is your creditworthiness at risk?
Your ability to borrow in the UK can be jeopardised easily without you even knowing.
Since the UK’s government lockdown in March, several individuals and business have reported that they have had a judgment registered against them in the courts and that they had not been notified of this until it was technically too late to be removed from the Register. With businesses abandon-ing their presence in the UK, or lapses in communication between parties due to the pandemic, some have not received requests for payment or invoices directly and only found out about a judg-ment when it was too late.
The problem is that even if you pay off the judgment debt, it may not be removed from your credit report. This would affect your ability to borrow and conduct business in the UK in future. Unless a CCJ is paid in full within 30 days of receiving the judgment, it will be entered on your credit record at the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines. This record will remain there for six years and can seriously affect your ability to get a mortgage, a credit card or even a bank account in the future.
What to do
The best way forward in such situations is to get the other side to negotiate an agreement to settle the matter, and remove the judgment from your record by way of consent order. In our experience, most judgment creditors will agree to do so with some additional fees being paid across to them as after all, they have no desire to actually affect your credit score. The consent order is submitted to the judge for approval and in most cases, the courts are reluctant to intervene in the parties’ agreement and will approve the order to set aside the judgment by consent.
In certain circumstances however, especially where the judgment debt is of a high value, it may be best to obtain the creditor’s agreement to set aside the judgment by way of Tomlin Order. A Tomlin Order keeps the details of the settlement in the form of a confidential schedule e.g. the payment of the judgment debt and additional settlement fees. While the Judge may have access to the schedule, as the contents are technically not to be considered by the courts in its decision to approve the order. The judge would there-fore be less likely to query whether and why the judgment should be removed from the Register.
Thereafter, key credit agencies should be contacted and where appropriate, the process for removal of the judgment from your credit report should be undertaken in accordance with the agencies’ rules.
We have helped our clients to negotiate a settlement with their judgment creditors for the removal the judgment from the Court Register and clear their credit score quickly and efficiently. We can help you with the delicate process of setting aside and contacting key credit reference agencies so as to restore your creditworthiness and not further jeopardise your credit score.
Please contact our solicitors Michael Chan if you would like us to help in your case.
Recovering unpaid or late rent against your tenant, what are the options?
As a landlord with mortgage payments, service charges and related bills (amongst other things) to pay it is important for prompt payment of rent from your tenants. However, of course, things do not always run smoothly therefore there are legal paths and remedies that can be sought in order to seek recovery. This article examines the options open to landlords when problems arise.
Payment Agreement
This is probably the simplest and cheapest solution in order to recover any rent arrears from your tenant. It is of course always easier to talk to your tenant to agree some sort of payment plan without having to undertake legal recourse. It would be recommended that if a payment plan is arranged with your tenant that a letter of agreement is drawn and signed by all parties. This is less formal document than a contract but still carry some legal weight and the tenant should be aware that failure to abide by the terms will result them being in breach of two legal contracts. The tenant may agree to use his deposit as payment (or part payment of the outstanding debt) this is acceptable but it is recommended that if this agreed that the agreement is put in writing.
Issuing Legal Proceedings
If the tenant is unable or unwilling to sign a letter of agreement then as a landlord you are able to issue legal proceedings against them personally. The outstanding rent arrears can be treated as a regular outstanding debt and County Court proceedings, after a letter of claim has been sent, can be issued for recovery of the same. If the court summons isn't responded to within the specified time limits then as a landlord you will be able to obtain Judgement in Default against the tenant and then take steps to to instruct Bailiffs. The disadvantage to this route is if the tenant still resides in your property then it is going to be negligible whether they are going to own enough assets to be recovered by the Bailiffs and sold at public auction to recover the debt. However, the advantage to this route from a landlord perspective is that any Default Judgment, if not paid within a certain time period, is going to seriously affect not only the tenants credit history but also his ability to secure another tenancy when he leaves the property. The tenant is likely to be aware of this and, in our experience just the threat of issuing county court proceedings, will be enough for the tenant to make the necessary efforts to pay the arrears before further action is required. If the tenant has vacated your property their current contact details will of course be required before the issuing of proceedings. If these are unknown we are able to take steps to search for the tenant so we have up to date details before issuing proceedings.
Pursuing a Guarantor
If the tenant has already left the property and they had a guarantor counter signed the tenancy agreement, you are able to pursue the guarantor for the outstanding rent. This route will only be successful if the guarantor has signed a Deed to say that they will be responsible for any unpaid rent. If this is in order then a ‘letter before action’ should be sent to the guarantor and a copy of the letter sent to the tenant. If no response is received, and the contact details for the guarantor are in order, then as with the above legal proceedings can be issued against the guarantor for recovery. Assuming that the guarantor would either be a close friend or, more likely, a family member of the tenant then this would be a course of action that should yield a positive result as far as recovery of outstanding rent is concerned.
Taking Steps to Evict the Tenant
The steps required to evict a tenant haven’t changed since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic however the notice periods that you have to give to your tenant have done. If as is common your tenant has signed a fixed term assured shorthold tenancy (AST) and your tenant has stopped paying rent during the fixed term then it is necessary to serve them with notice. This is done by serving either or both a Section 21 Notice and a Section 8 Notice, both are in effect ‘Notices to Quit’ and inform the tenant what date they need to vacate the property by. Should they fail to comply with the date in the notice then as a landlord you are about to apply to the court for an order of possession and, if still necessary, execute the order and instruct Bailiffs to do this for you in order to regain possession of your property. You can then decide which notice you intend to enforce, both have their advantages and disadvantages. A s21 Notice is more straightforward for the landlord as the tenant is unable to file a Defence to the action and as long as the possession is valid then possession will be granted, the issue is of course this only provides possession of the property. A s8 Notice can, if granted, also provide a money order against the tenant for any unpaid rent which is an option not open to the landlord under s21. The one disadvantage to a s8 Notice is the tenant, should he so wish, is able to file a Defence. This may cause serious delays in gaining possession of your property and, should the court consider the Defence valid, could result in a costs order in the tenants favour against the landlord. It is also worth pointing out that if a s8 or s21 Notice is served after 29th August 2020 then 6 months’ notice must be given by the landlord, the reason for this is as a direct result of the pandemic. Prior to the 26th March 2020 the notice period was just 2 months, as things hopefully returns to normality over the coming months it is expected that the notice period needed to give by landlords will go back to ‘pre pandemic’ periods.
Should you wish to discuss anything further mentioned above or instruct our civil litigation team please email mchan@cnsolicitors.com or sangel@cnsolicitors.com
Chan Neill Solicitors participates in Free Wills Month (March) 2019- Doing our part in Helping Great
Charities involved in supporting Free Wills Month work for a variety of causes. They work tirelessly to protect and enrich the lives of millions of people.
Most UK charities depend on legacies for up to half their income – by taking part in a Free Wills Month campaign you could help one or more of these worthy causes.
If you are interested in leaving your legacy to one of the participating charities, and is aged 55 years and older, please contact us for further information and participating charities.
Appointments are limited and are allocated on a first come first served basis and may once all appointments are fully booked, the campaign will close, even before end of the month.
For further information, please refer to https://freewillsmonth.org.uk/