Oh crap! I just downloaded the latest FINTRAC material from the mother ship CREA and now my weekend is pretty much ruined. (There was a temporary reprieve when my wife rushed in to tell me there was a dead deer under our deck. Mmmm, aged venison for dinner!)
Because I have been publicly vocal in my critique of the information gathering forced on Realtors in pursuit of money launderers and terrorists, I figure the FINTRAC Compliance Auditors are revving up their black Suburbans and heading for my office the moment the download registers on the CRAY super computer of the Canadian version of the NSA. Or maybe CSIS just subscribes to WikiLeaks.
By the way, the new manual is 82 pages plus another 26 pages of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). One FAQ that begs to be added is WTF. In addition, the new identity record is now four pages with extra questions regarding client risk and the purpose of the business relationship. There are consent forms and template letters (of course I read the whole damn thing, I’m Canadian!) and something intriguing called “sample clusters”. Inside the sample clusters are “cluster names” and “cluster features”.
The “cluster” that comes to mind, made popular by the military, does not appear.
One of the new Compliance Regime pages instructs me to staple it to the manual. What if I use duct tape? Am I non-compliant? And what happens to the old manual, gathering dust since its creation in 2008? Should I shred it to avoid it falling into terrorist hands? What if the dust reacts to the shredding in a combustible dust explosion?
And wait until you read the cover letter from CREA on the Realtor Action Network. Apparently more than two years were spent lobbying FINTRAC, “substantively and significantly (reducing) the administrative and record creation burden of these new requirements on Realtor members.”
Quite frankly that is semantic sleight of hand. The new ID forms are longer and require more documentation. There are new answers to old questions and the latest manual won’t fit in the old binder, suggesting a blip in three-ring binder sales to accommodate the new material. Did I mention 82 pages, the FAQs plus the suggested add-ins within the 10 appendices?
Hate to think what the first blush proposal looked like.
Especially when I tripped over the Risk Mitigation, Training Program and Review Process pages. The latter requires a review of our regime every two years by an internal or external auditor. But if we don’t have an auditor, we can do a “self-review”. My concern here is two-fold. Primary – of course we have an external auditor. What real estate company with a trust account does not? Can we still self-review?
Secondarily – isn’t a self-review sort of like letting Mayor Ford hold your beer while you roll a joint? The rules for self-review require “an individual who is independent of the brokerages’ reporting, record keeping and compliance monitoring functions.”
The only person I can think of meeting those qualifications might be the janitor.
Then there’s the training and ongoing education program – mandatory, of course, supported by CREA’s online, five module Money Laundering 101. It’s available through RealtorLink, accessible to all CREA members. The irony is that all staff, including administrative, unlicensed staff is required to take training. Guess what? Our admin staff is unable to access RealtorLink because they aren’t members. I could lend them my password but apparently that’s frowned upon.
When I got to the training record keeping form and glanced at the bottom section labelled, “Names of those attending” my paranoia did a back flip, imagining the reverse demand, “Names of those NOT attending.” Surely it’s not a stretch to imagine the organization that suggests we report as “suspicious” someone who refuses to provide identification, that they might soon be requesting names of those failing to attend training classes. But then that’s just me.
And there’s the new risk re-assessment spread sheet, one I’m expected to create with mandatory column headings and then complete at least every two years or as transactions occur. Thoughtfully, apparently software developers have had a heads-up on this requirement because Lone Wolf, in advance of the new regime’s publication, advertised in last month’s issue of REM they are FINTRAC compliant and fully integrated. FINTRAC promises to be patient while these software solutions are implemented.
Finally, because I sense a certain ennui as you tire of this outburst, I’d expect an organization that spent two years in negotiation to have proofread the material before dispatching it to the colonies.
On page 24 there are two glaring mistakes. I’d tell you what they are but then you wouldn’t have to read the manual.
Contact Marty Douglas by email at [email protected] . Follow or connect with Marty on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. He is a managing broker for Re/Max Ocean Pacific Realty in Comox and Courtenay, B.C. He is a past chair of the Real Estate Errors and Omissions Insurance Corporation of B.C., the Real Estate Council of B.C., the B.C. Real Estate Association and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board.
