Who identifies the buyer when a buyer's agent is involved?

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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A Queensland buyer who engages a buyer's agent this spring will probably show a passport or driver's licence to that agent before the search begins. Then the selling agent asks for the same documents once an offer is accepted. Then the conveyancer or solicitor asks, twice over, for two different reasons. Then the lender asks. Each of those businesses is working under a rule that names the buyer as its own customer, or as a party whose identity it must verify.

The repetition raises a fair question: if a licensed buyer's agent has already checked the buyer, why does the selling agent check again, and can the professionals in one sale share the work? This guide follows the buyer's documents through a purchase. It sets out who is whose customer under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, what each professional collects, the deadlines, the three ways one business may use another's checks, and what happens to the copies afterwards.

Sources: AML/CTF Act 2006, section 6, table 5; explanatory statement to the 2026 amendment of the AML/CTF Rules; AUSTRAC record keeping checklist.

Why one purchase now involves several checks

Real estate professionals, conveyancers and lawyers joined the anti-money-laundering regime in the middle of this year. AUSTRAC's page on professional designated services tells lawyers and conveyancers that a business providing those services from 1 July 2026 must comply with the Act and Rules from that date. The OAIC's notice of 27 February 2026 lists real estate professionals, lawyers and conveyancers among the newly regulated entities that also come under the Privacy Act from 1 July 2026.

The Act does not regulate a profession by its name. It regulates a "designated service", and each service comes with a customer written into the same table. A business that provides the service must carry out initial customer due diligence on that customer. AUSTRAC's overview of customer due diligence describes the task as identifying the customer and certain other persons, and assessing the money laundering and terrorism financing risk the customer presents, before the service starts.

The service a buyer's agent provides, and its customers

Table 5 of section 6 of the Act, as it stands in the compilation dated 1 July 2026 on the Federal Register of Legislation, has two items for real estate. The first is "brokering the sale, purchase or transfer of real estate on behalf of a buyer, seller, transferee or transferor" in the course of carrying on a business. The second covers a business that sells its own real estate without an independent agent brokering the sale, which is the position of a developer selling directly; its customer is the buyer.

A buyer's agent and a selling agent therefore provide the same designated service, the first item, seen from opposite sides. The detail that matters is in the customer column. For a brokered sale it reads "both": the seller or transferor, and the buyer or transferee. The Act does not say that the buyer's agent's customer is the buyer and the selling agent's customer is the seller. It makes both parties customers of every broker in the transaction.

AUSTRAC's guidance repeats the point without softening it. Its page on initial due diligence for individuals, last updated 31 March 2026, says that a business brokering the sale, purchase or transfer of real estate has the seller and the buyer as customers, and must complete initial due diligence on the parties it is and is not acting for.

In a Queensland purchase with a buyer's agent on one side and a selling agent on the other, this gives four checks before a conveyancer is even instructed. The buyer's agent identifies the buyer, who is its client, and the seller, who is not. The selling agent identifies the seller, who is its client, and the buyer, who is not. The difference between the two agents is not who they must identify. It is when.

When each agent must have finished

The general rule is that initial due diligence is completed before the service starts. AUSTRAC's guidance on delayed due diligence applies that rule in full to the party an agent acts for: an agent brokering for a buyer must complete the check on the buyer before it starts providing the buyer with the service, and an agent acting for a seller must do the same for the seller.

The party on the other side is treated differently, because an agent often does not know who that party will be until an offer is made. The Rules allow the check on the other party to be delayed. The explanatory statement to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (2025 Rules) Amendment Rules 2026, an instrument dated 24 March 2026 on the Federal Register of Legislation, sets out the limit in section 6-32 of the Rules: the period ends at the earlier of 28 days after the exchange of contracts, or 3 days before the initially agreed day for settlement. The same statement lists who may use the delay: the agent acting for the seller, for its check on the buyer; the agent acting for the buyer, for its check on the seller; and a professional services provider, such as a conveyancer or lawyer, assisting a buyer client.

The delay is not automatic. AUSTRAC's guidance says a business must first determine, on reasonable grounds, that delaying is essential to avoid interrupting the ordinary course of business and that the additional risk is low, and that inconvenience alone is not a sufficient reason. The table below puts the professionals a buyer meets side by side.

One consequence follows for a buyer who uses a buyer's agent. The selling agent's check on the buyer is not replaced by the buyer's agent's check: each business meets its own obligation under its own program. Unless one of the sharing routes described further on is used, the buyer should expect a second request from the selling agent's office in the weeks after the contract is signed.

What the buyer is asked for

AUSTRAC's page on initial due diligence for individuals lists the information collected from a person: full name, any other names the person is commonly known by, date of birth, residential address and, where the person has one, a unique identifier such as a passport or driver's licence number. The page describes verification of the name and date of birth against a government-issued primary photographic document, or a primary non-photographic document together with a secondary document showing name and address. It adds that a business can confirm the person matches the photograph in person or by video call.

Two further matters are established for every customer. The same page says a business must establish whether the customer, or any person acting on the customer's behalf, is designated for targeted financial sanctions, and whether any individual is a politically exposed person. AUSTRAC's overview describes a politically exposed person as someone who holds a prominent public position, and says such customers carry additional obligations. For sanctions, the guidance points to the Consolidated List kept by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Questions about where the money comes from belong to the higher-risk cases. AUSTRAC's overview says enhanced due diligence, meaning additional steps to identify the customer and assess risk, applies when a customer's risk is high or in other specified circumstances. The individuals page gives a real estate illustration: an 18-year-old student who wants to buy a high-value property with physical cash is rated high risk, explains that the cash came from an inheritance, and provides a grant of probate to verify it.

Buying through a company or a family trust

Many Queensland investment purchases are made by a company or by the trustee of a family trust, and the list of people identified grows accordingly. AUSTRAC's glossary defines a beneficial owner as a natural person who ultimately owns, directly or indirectly, 25 per cent or more of the customer, or who controls it directly or indirectly. No percentage applies to the control test.

AUSTRAC's page on initial due diligence for trusts sets out what is collected: the trust's full name and type, any business names, any unique identifier such as an ABN, and its principal place of business or operations. The business identifies the trustees and any representative who deals with it, and confirms that representative's authority to act. It identifies each beneficiary or, where that is not possible, describes each class of beneficiaries. It identifies the settlor, the appointor and any guardian or protector, and identifies all beneficial owners, who the page says are verified in the same way as an individual.

The page names the trust deed and its amendments, such as deeds of variation, as the documents used to verify the trust, with ABN Lookup or a letter from an independent professional such as a lawyer or accountant as alternatives.

Three ways one professional may use another's checks

The Act gives two general routes, and the Rules add a third that exists only for real estate.

The first is a standing agreement under section 37A of the Act. AUSTRAC's guidance describes it as an ongoing arrangement that lets one business rely on know-your-customer information already collected by another reporting entity or a regulated foreign business. It must be in writing, approved by a senior manager, and set out each party's responsibilities, including for record keeping. The relying business must be able to obtain all the information before it starts providing its service, and AUSTRAC says it would not expect delays beyond one business day after a request. The arrangement is assessed at least every 2 years and after a significant change, with a written record prepared within 10 business days of each assessment. A business that is not satisfied the arrangement complies must carry out its own check.

The second is reliance case by case, under section 38. AUSTRAC's guidance says this reliance must be appropriate to the money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing risks the relying business faces. The business considers the other party's nature, size and complexity, its services and customers, and documents why reliance is appropriate. It must obtain all the information the other party collected before it starts its own service or, where a delay applies, within the delayed timeframe, and must be able to obtain copies of the verification data immediately or as soon as practicable after asking.

The third is specific to property. The 2026 amendment gave the first part of section 6-33 of the Rules the heading "Reliance on arrangement for collecting and verifying KYC information". According to the explanatory statement, it covers a reporting entity taking part in an arrangement for a real estate transaction that obtains the information collected by another participating reporting entity. The participant may collect and verify the information no later than 28 days after the exchange of contracts, and the other entity's information and copies of its verification data must be obtained at least 3 days before the initially agreed day for the settlement.

A selling agent may therefore, in principle, use the buyer's agent's check on the buyer, and the buyer's agent may use the selling agent's check on the seller.

What sharing does not do

Reliance is a way of obtaining the information. It is not a transfer of the obligation. AUSTRAC's case-by-case guidance notes that the other party's risk assessment and policies may differ, and that the relying business's initial due diligence must still match the risks the customer presents to its own business. A selling agent that receives a buyer's file from a buyer's agent still has to form its own view of that buyer.

The AUSTRAC pages opened for this guide do not state, in terms, which business answers for a defect in a check that was relied on. An earlier AUSTRAC quick guide on these arrangements, published before the 2026 reform, said that a standing arrangement can offer a safe harbour for isolated breaches, while a business relying without one remains liable. Whether AUSTRAC's current guidance repeats that wording could not be confirmed, so the point is left open here.

Three other limits are worth knowing. No AUSTRAC page read for this guide gives a worked example of reliance between a buyer's agent and a selling agent; the example on the case-by-case page concerns a financial adviser and an investment fund. Nothing in the guidance obliges a business to accept another's check, so a selling agent or conveyancer may still prefer to collect the documents directly. And AUSTRAC's case-by-case guidance says a business must consider whether it needs the customer's consent, under the Privacy Act, before know-your-customer information is disclosed. A buyer may be asked to agree before a file moves from one office to another.

Sharing moves the paperwork from one office to another. The duty to know the customer stays with each business that serves the buyer.

The conveyancer, the solicitor and the lender

A buyer's conveyancer or solicitor provides a different service, found in table 6 of the Act: assisting a person in the planning or execution of a transaction to sell, buy or otherwise transfer real estate. The customer is "the person" assisted. AUSTRAC's professional services page says the service starts when the practitioner acts on instructions in relation to the transaction, and that in a private treaty sale a transaction typically exists once the buyer and seller agree on the price, before any deposit is paid.

Unlike an agent, the practitioner does not acquire the other side as a customer. QLS Proctor, the Queensland Law Society's publication, reported in June 2026 an AUSTRAC statement that the customer is the person or entity to whom the professional service is provided, and that a seller's solicitor who holds the buyer's deposit is not required to carry out due diligence on the buyer for that reason alone. The solicitor must still assess the risks of the transaction.

The same practitioner then verifies the buyer a second time under a separate set of rules. ARNECC's Guidance Note 2, updated in August 2024 for version 7 of the Model Participation Rules, says a subscriber to an electronic conveyancing system must take reasonable steps to verify the identity of its client. Its purpose is to reduce the registration of fraudulent land transactions. The note describes a Verification of Identity Standard built on a face-to-face, in-person interview with original and current documents, and states that a video call does not meet that standard. AUSTRAC's guidance, by contrast, accepts a video call for matching a person to a photograph. One sitting with a conveyancer can serve both purposes, but the two tests are not the same, and the note itself says only that an anti-money-laundering style check "may be reasonable, in the circumstances" for title purposes, at the subscriber's risk.

The lender completes the set. Making a loan in the course of a loans business is a designated service in table 1 of the Act, with the borrower as customer, and ARNECC's note is addressed to mortgage lenders as well as subscribers, for verifying a mortgagor.

When a party will not cooperate

A buyer's agent must identify a seller it does not act for, and some sellers will not answer. The 2026 amendment added a rule for that case. According to the explanatory statement, where an agent providing the brokering service has taken all reasonable steps to establish the identity of the other party but cannot because that party does not cooperate, the agent is taken to have established the required matters. The agent must record the steps it took and the difficulties it met, and must consider whether a suspicious matter report is required.

Suspicious matter reports also explain why a professional may be unable to say much about a delay or a further question. AUSTRAC's notice on the tipping-off offence states that, from 31 March 2025, reporting entities are prohibited from disclosing information related to a suspicious matter report to another person where the disclosure would or could reasonably be expected to prejudice an investigation. The same restriction reaches the paperwork a buyer receives: the OAIC says a business must give clear privacy policies and collection notices, unless giving notice would breach the tipping-off restrictions.

Where the copies end up

Every check leaves a record. AUSTRAC's record keeping checklist, last updated 25 March 2026, says customer due diligence records are kept for at least 7 years from the date the business relationship ends. A written reliance arrangement must also say which party keeps which records.

Keeping a record of a check is not the same as keeping a scan of a passport. The OAIC's notice of 27 February 2026 says reporting entities must collect only the personal information that is reasonably necessary, should not keep full copies of identity documents for anti-money-laundering record keeping, and should delete information when it is no longer required. Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind said in that notice: "Holding onto copies of ID documents not only creates risks to individuals, it creates risks for businesses."

How often the professionals in an ordinary Queensland sale actually share a buyer's file, instead of each collecting it again, is not something AUSTRAC's published guidance yet shows.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

About Kooky and Shaka →