It is already starting next week that the companies that operate in the real estate business will be subject to a new regulation that takes effect on June 26, 2019 and brings added obligations. For example, real estate agents have new rules for the identification, control and communication of transactions involving the purchase, lease, sale or exchange of real estate. In question is a regulation to prevent and combat money laundering and terrorist financing, which covers all activities related to real estate development, leasing and purchase, sale or exchange of real estate developed by real estate entities. What are the new obligations? From Wednesday of next week, the identification of the client must be made before the establishment of the business relationship and will have to go through the collection of the name, address, nationality, NIF, profession and employer or, in the case of companies, the address of the headquarters or branch or the identification of all holders with holdings of more than 5%. Alongside this identification, entities with real estate activity are still required to have a written record of the information collected, which should be maintained for seven years, and to define risk management models in order to identify suspected money laundering or terrorism. New identification and reporting obligations are required where a transaction of EUR 15 000 or more is involved, where the real estate agent or broker suspects that the transactions in question may relate to money laundering or terrorist financing or when there is doubt about the veracity of the customer identification data. Under these new rules, real estate entities have to communicate to the Institute of Public Markets of Real Estate and Construction (IMPIC) the elements relating to each real estate transaction in which they intervene, as well as the elements related to leases whose monthly rent value is equal to or greater than 2,500 euros. Companies in the industry with more than five employees are also required to have a Compliance Officer (RPN). Difficulties in operating rules can cool the market Although considering this new regulation is "a fundamental step" to make the real estate sector more resistant to the possible contamination of such crimes, António Oliveira e Silva, lawyer of Broseta, Roquete Morais e Guerra, quoted by Lusa, warns that some entities will have difficult to meet the new requirements. "The information reports, the collection and processing of data that is now required of those who are in this sector, even if they are legitimate requirements, will make it harder for companies to take care of daily life, especially the smaller ones," explains the lawyer in to the news agency. "There is a set of procedures that are quite heavy and that, making sense, will immediately increase the costs of companies and market operators," he said, to underline the importance of training. An example of the difficulty and importance of training is, he says, the fact that people have to be aware of "indicators of suspicion", and legislation also provides for a "heavy" criminal and administrative framework that may imply penalties of prison between two and 12 years and fines of thousands of euros. António Oliveira e Silva believes that "in the immediate" the regulation will cause "some disturbance", and may even contribute to some cooling of the sector because there will be fears and doubts about "what to do, what to communicate or not to communicate". source: https://www.idealista.pt/news/imobiliario/empresas/2019/06/17/39965-imobiliarias-com-novas-regras-a-partir-de-26-de-junho