It is reported that organised crime costs the UK economy more than £100bn every year. For legal and property firms, conveyancing plays a considerable role in deterring money laundering cases.

With Source of Funds (SoF) and Source of Wealth (SoW) checks both a mandatory requirement for legal and property firms, Conveyancers are showing it is possible to tackle the financial crime increase at one transaction point.

Our partnership with Armalytix has created an effortlessly customer experience to conduct faster and more effective SoF and SoW checks that provide greater insights and reduce your risk in transactions.

We hosted a session with Tom Lyes, Head of Legal at Armalytix, and Kate Burt, Founder of HiveRisk, on Source of Funds & Wealth: Top Tips and Guidance on Wednesday 21st February 2024. Highlights from the webinar include:

• Expectations from regulators: with a focus on The Law Society of Scotland guidance on funds derived from Crypto
• Navigating complex challenges: key principles, common pitfalls, issues and risks with Source of Funds
• Technology Insights: How can technology help with the Source of Funds process
• Expert panel discussions: A common question from the audience was whether costs be passed onto clients. Tom Lyes states, “There is nothing to stop firms charging for AML as a fee, but they would need to include a paragraph in their terms of business. They can also show it as a separate fee and VAT on the fee note.” 

To view the presentation, click here.

Over the festive period, our office hours will vary from usual. Our Christmas opening times are as follows:

• Friday 22nd December: Normal office opening hours
• Monday 25th December: Bank Holiday: Office closed
• Tuesday 26th December: Bank Holiday: Office closed
• Wednesday 27th December: Normal office opening hours
• Thursday 28th December: Normal office opening hours
• Friday 29th December: Normal office opening hours
• Monday 1st January: Bank Holiday: Office closed
• Tuesday 2nd January: Bank Holiday: Office closed.

Thompsons Solicitors Scotland crowned winners of Firm of the Year at this year’s Scottish Legal Awards.

During a fantastic evening, the ultimate award of the night was Firm of the Year, sponsored by Millar & Bryce. This year the awards was presented to Thompson Solicitors following a series of high-profile winning campaigns and a successful strategic expansion into new areas of work.

Gary Donaldson, Operations Director at Millar & Bryce, commented:

“We’re delighted to be continuing our support of the Scottish Legal Awards, congratulations to all of the businesses that we shortlisted, it really is testament to the amount of hard work and dedication by all those involved. We’d like to wish an extra special congratulations to Thompsons Solicitors for winning firm of the year, a fantastic achievement that you should all be incredible proud of.”

Conveyancers must deal with a rising tide of regulation as efforts to tackle financial crime increase. Complying with these obligations to verify the source of a client’s funds and wealth is becoming more complicated as it becomes more critical. Many of these checks are still being carried out manually by firms through the collection of bank statements and client questionnaires.

Armalytix provides a solution to allow Millar & Bryce’s legal customers to conduct faster and more effective Source of Funds (SoF) and Share of Wealth (SoW) checks that provide greater insights and reduce your risk in transactions.

Evidence collated via Armalytix can be used to build the rationale as to how a client can fund the transaction and provide assurance that these funds were obtained through legal and visible means.

We are holding a joint webinar at 10.30am on Wednesday 11th October looking at the challenges faced by property lawyers when it comes to collecting and reviewing SoF information and how technology can help aid faster, more accurate risk-based decisions.

Click here to register for the webinar

Millar & Bryce, Scotland’s premier land property search expert, has today announced its partnership with Armalytix, a data intelligence firm that allows the safe sharing of financial insights.

With Source of Funds (SoF) and Share of Wealth (SoW) checks both a mandatory requirement, this partnership will allow Millar & Bryce’s legal customers to conduct faster and more effective checks that provide greater insights and reduce their risk in transactions.

Home movers are able to share data via Open Banking services to deliver the financial insight law firms require to run comprehensive anti-money laundering (AML), fraud and financial risk checks. Evidence collated via Armalytix can be used to build the rationale as to how a client can fund the transaction and provide assurance that these funds were obtained through legal and visible means.

Millar & Bryce customers will also have access to new modular features, including;

• Dedicated Commercial Property journey
• Income Verification
• Upfront financial fact findings
• Market-leading analysis
• Legal Eye endorsed questionnaires

Richard Hepburn, Managing Director at Millar & Bryce, commented:

“We’re delighted to be signing this partnership agreement and working with one of the UK’s foremost companies in the provision of data for AML checks. This agreement will allow Millar & Bryce customers to enhance their AML checks and will provide them with peace of mind that they have all the information necessary to make a decision on a client and demonstrate that to the regulators.

“Our commitment to the continual improvement of our tech stack to complement the huge knowledge and experience we have within the team is now bearing fruit, and we are now seeking to further enhance that via relationships with data providers such as Armalytix.”

 Tom Lyes, Head of Legal and Property at Armalytix, stated:

“Partnerships are incredibly important to us at Armalytix and we’re excited to be working with our first partner in Scotland. From speaking to Millar & Bryce’s MD, Richard Hepburn, and Director of Operations, Gary Donaldson, it’s really clear that they have a wealth of experience in the Scottish market and really know their clients’ regulatory requirements. Our partnership allows access to our market leading solution to transform the complex, manual process of Source of Funds and Wealth checks.”

We’re holding a joint webinar on Wednesday 11th October looking at the challenges faced by property lawyers when it comes to collecting and reviewing SoF information and how technology can help aid faster, more accurate risk based decisions. Click here to register for the webinar.

Property title and land register information provider Millar & Bryce is to partner with the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership following a successful trial period.

The Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, funded by the Scottish Government and hosted by charity Shelter Scotland, aims to support councils to bring 43,000 empty properties across Scotland back into use.

The initiative is undertaken in partnership with local authorities who identify the private owners of empty homes and support the property to become a home for someone again.

Transparency of property ownership can be a challenge in Scotland where over 30% of land and property is locked in the historic 400-year-old Sasine Register.

Unlocking this data and providing answers on ownership is the main barrier to getting homes that have been empty for a significant period, back into occupation.

Using its 400 years of Sasine Register expertise and digital platforms, Millar & Bryce helped Moray Council identify the private owners of a number of empty homes.

Following the successful trial, Millar & Bryce will be able to collaborate with other local authorities in the SEHP network and help them unlock access to the empty homes in their area.

Andy Moseley, policy and projects manager, Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, said: “Empty homes are a wasted resource at a time of a housing emergency in Scotland, and it is our mission to make sure these homes are brought back into use wherever possible.”

“However, there are challenges to this, including difficulties in finding out who owns an empty property, where they have been empty for several years or even decades in some cases. Millar and Bryce have been able to address these issues and help Local Authorities speed up the process through their search expertise and tech led platforms. We’re looking forward to working with them in the future and unlocking access to more empty homes across Scotland.”

Richard Hepburn, managing director of Millar & Bryce, a Landmark Information Group business, added: “With the property market under pressure, it is vital that we are able to bring homes back into use to boost supply.

“The opportunity to deploy Millar and Bryce’s skills in complex property and land ownership identification in such a beneficial way for communities across Scotland will help to ensure we can unlock homes quicker for people.”

Hot on the heels of the introduction of the Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land (RCI) last month, we are about to see further measures implemented. These measures will give additional transparency on foreign ownership of land and property in the UK and crack down on foreign criminals using UK property to launder money.

Unlike the RCI, which is held by the Registers of Scotland to show who has significant influence or control over the owner of land in Scotland, the new Register of Overseas Entities (ROE) is UK-wide in scope and will give details of the beneficial ownership of all overseas entities that own UK property. Overseas entities will not be able to buy, sell, transfer or lease land, or create a charge against the land in the UK unless they have registered in the ROE, which will be held and maintained by Companies House.

Similar to the transparency aims of the RCI, the ROE will require anonymous foreign owners of UK property to disclose their identities to ensure that they cannot hide behind secretive chains of shell companies.

Once the overseas entity has registered and provided all the necessary information, an ID will be provided by Companies House for the entity. In Scotland this ID will need to be shared with the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland and used whenever the overseas entity buys, sells, transfers, leases or charges land in Scotland.

The measures under the ROE will apply to any company or similar legal entity that is governed by the law of a non-UK country. Overseas entities that already own land in the UK will be given 6 months to register their beneficial owners or managing officers from the date that the register is launched. 

Companies House are contacting all overseas entities captured by the Act that own land in Scotland (and England and Wales) to make sure they are aware of their new responsibilities. The measures will apply retrospectively to property bought since December 2014 in Scotland (and since January 1999 in England and Wales).

Amendments are being made to the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012 requiring the Keeper to reject applications for registration in favour of unregistered overseas entities.

If you are acting in conveyancing transaction for a party transacting with an overseas entity, you will need to confirm that the overseas entity is registered in the ROE. You will also have to confirm the date of registration, the entity’s ID reference and that the entries for the entity in the ROE are up –to date.

The launch date for the new register is yet to be announced, however you can be assured that Millar & Bryce will be on hand to provide you with a search in the ROE when applicable.

Please contact us on 0131 556 1313 or relationship@millar-bryce.com for more information.

We have recently had a number of enquiries regarding searches in the Register of Inhibitions (ROI).

We have received these enquiries because Registers of Scotland (ROS) recent withdrawal of their bulk supply of daily applications to the ROI. The provision of this bulk data previously allowed us to create and maintain a database of ROI entries and apply enhanced searching rules.

We want to take this opportunity to assure you that Millar & Bryce will continue to provide this enhanced level of searching against names and variants of names in the ROI.

What does it mean in practice?

Since we were first made aware of the withdrawal of this service around three years ago, we have been working with ROS to access the register via an API. We have invested considerable time and IT tech resource to ensure that we continue to apply enhanced names searching and minimise any risk of missing an adverse entry in the ROI.

What does this mean for you?

It’s for these reasons that we have invested in our processes and technology to minimise the risk for you within the legal sector. Please be assured there will be no change in the Millar & Bryce process; we will continue to not only search against names provided but to also search against all reasonable name and address variants.

Our team is on hand to help with any further queries you might have. Please contact us on 0131 556 1313 or relationship@millar-bryce.com for more information.