The Danish Money Laundering Act

The Danish Money Laundering Act

As real estate agents we are subject to the Danish Money Laundering Act, see Consolidated Act no. 651 of 8 June 2017.

Under the Act, a number of duties are imposed on us for the purpose of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing. These duties include obtaining identification of all owners and buyers, including ordinary consumers and owners and buyers of companies, members of management etc., who are parties to a case on the sale and purchase of real estate (sale, lease etc.).

Likewise, the Money Laundering Act stipulates increased security if the real estate agent does not meet the person physically. This means that persons in the brokering task/contract of sale, or persons who must otherwise identify themselves under the Money Laundering Act, with whom the estate agent has had no physical contact, can only positively identify themselves by submitting a photo of themselves holding their passport or driving licence.

The Act stipulates that we must store the identification on current client relationships and delete it five years after the client relationship terminates. Besides the identification, we must generally make a Know Your Customer analysis of the client. We must do all this, as a minimum, at the beginning of a client relationship.

In an existing client relationship, we are also obliged to regularly update the information we have about our clients.

If we suspect money laundering and/or that a transaction is connected with terrorist financing, we must report it to the Money Laundering Secretariat under the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime (SØIK).

If you need further information about our money laundering policy, please feel free to contact us.