Effective June 23, 2008, there's new federal legislation coming into effect that has broad ramifications. I'm only covering it as it pertains to real estate transactions.
The legislation is called The Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act. It's intended to help in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, in part, through greater disclosures.
I already attended a seminar on this and samples that they provided to us demonstrated that these actions have become quite sophisticated and interconnected and it's up to the FINTRAC analysts to track these kinds of transactions and "connect the dots". And believe me, to the average Joe, these are otherwise normal looking transactions. Often times, it's not even evident at the individual-transaction-level. It's only when several, seemingly unrelated activities are connected that the bigger picture becomes clear.
What does it mean in real estate transactions?
Basically, it means more detailed identification of buyers and sellers is going to be required (including any third parties, too). It's now going to require
- photo ID,
- date of birth and
- primary career/occupation (and "self-employed" won't cut it).
There's going to be a lot of shake-out on this as the ramifications and obligations get digested and the individual brokerages map out how they plan to deal with it all.
As usual, working with an informed Realtor is your best bet.
You can obtain a copy of the FINTRAC brochure from my website.
Or, you can always visit the FINTRAC website directly to learn more about their mandate as well as this legislation in particular. Just browsing their homepage will give you an idea of their scope - casinos, life insurance, securities dealers, accountants, large cash transactions, electronic funds transfers and much more.
And, importantly, this legislation supersedes the PIPEDA legislation (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) and your right to privacy.
