SRA reports ‘continued improvement’ on AML measures
Summary
The Solicitors Regulation Authority reports continued improvement in anti-money laundering compliance across the profession, with the proportion of non-compliant firms falling to 21.9% in 2025/26. The report also highlights conveyancing, particularly residential transactions, as the highest-risk area and notes growing concern around sanctions compliance and AI-enabled fraud.
Why it matters
Residential property surveyors are often involved in transactions where source-of-funds checks, identity verification and wider AML controls are relevant to the conveyancing process. The findings reinforce the need for robust due diligence and awareness of fraud, sanctions and compliance risks affecting property transactions.
Key points
- Non-compliant firms fell from 32.4% to 21.9% year-on-year.
- Residential conveyancing was identified as the area of greatest AML risk.
- Half of the SRA's SARs were linked to residential property transactions.
- Sanctions-related cases have tripled since last year, though many issues were administrative rather than deliberate.
- The SRA warned that AI-enabled fraud and deepfakes are emerging threats to customer due diligence.
This is an RPSA summary of a publicly available article. The full content remains with the original publisher.
