Estate agent AML costs: bigger budgets forecast, but no confirmed rise in customer fees

What happened

Estate agent AML costs are under scrutiny after Thirdfort research found that 61% of senior compliance professionals expected their firm's anti-money laundering budget to rise over the next 12 months. The findings, reported on 16 October 2026, come from a survey of 200 senior compliance professionals. They concern expected business spending, rather than confirmed changes to charges paid by buyers or sellers.

Thirdfort found that 85% of respondents had faced greater compliance demands over the previous year. That measures how widespread the reported increase was, not how many additional checks each firm completed. The figures provided do not put a monetary value on the extra work or establish the average compliance cost of a property transaction.

The pressure also showed up in working hours. According to Thirdfort, 63% of respondents worked overtime on AML issues at least once a week, compared with 42% in its 2025 findings. That is a rise of 21 percentage points, although the reported results do not specify how many additional hours people worked.

Hiring expectations increased alongside the workload. Thirdfort said 51% expected their compliance teams to expand, compared with 26% in 2025. These are plans or expectations reported by respondents: the findings do not establish how many posts will be created, when recruitment will happen or whether additional staff will be permanent.

For households, the important distinction is between an agency's operating costs and its customer fees. Thirdfort's findings do not establish that firms will pass any additional spending on to customers. They also do not show that a buyer or seller will receive a separate AML charge, or that an existing charge will increase.

The background

Under UK anti-money laundering rules, estate agency businesses must carry out customer due diligence as part of their regulated work. This includes checking identity and assessing money-laundering risks. These requirements are separate from a property's valuation, a buyer's survey or the commercial negotiation over the sale price.

The survey points to a change in budget expectations, not simply more respondents anticipating recruitment. Thirdfort said only 6% expected their AML budget to be cut, compared with 31% last year. Those figures do not reveal the size of any planned increase or reduction, so they cannot be used to calculate an overall spending forecast for the sector.

Technology and administration were another reported difficulty. Thirdfort found that 81% of respondents regarded fragmented systems as a continuing challenge. The findings supplied do not identify particular software products or explain which stages of the compliance process caused the greatest difficulty, limiting what can be concluded about the remedy.

For customers, due diligence can involve requests to establish who they are and clarify the circumstances of a transaction. Under the UK's risk-based AML framework, the information a firm needs can vary with the case. A request for further evidence is therefore not, by itself, proof that a customer has done anything wrong.

The results also need to be kept separate from the way an individual agency organises its sales business. Property Pulse UK's reporting on self-employed estate agents and market share examines a different aspect of agency operations. Thirdfort's findings as reported do not compare AML costs between self-employed agents, branches or other business models.

Read moreSelf-employed estate agents gain market share as flat sellers face weaker demand

What people are saying

Respondents were not uniformly confident about the arrangements already in place. Thirdfort found that 52% considered their compliance processes very or extremely effective. That is a measure of professionals' own assessments, rather than an independent audit of whether firms meet their legal duties or successfully identify suspicious activity.

Thirdfort also reported a difference between employers of different sizes. Among businesses with more than 150 employees, 46% rated their processes as effective, compared with 59% at firms employing 25 people or fewer. The figures alone do not explain that gap or show that a smaller agency will provide a better experience for a particular customer.

Olly Thornton-Berry, Thirdfort's co-founder and chief executive, attributed the pressure on estate agency and property compliance teams to tighter regulation and higher standards. He linked those demands to expectations of larger budgets and teams. His comments describe the direction of pressure on firms; they do not identify a new rule taking effect on the publication date.

Thornton-Berry argued that investment could strengthen the expertise needed for difficult compliance decisions. His position puts staff knowledge alongside spending and recruitment, rather than treating additional headcount as the only answer. He did not provide a recommended budget, staffing ratio or spending benchmark for an estate agency.

He also argued that investment could address disconnected systems, reducing administration and the risk of problems being obscured. Thornton-Berry presented better-integrated client due diligence as an intended benefit. The research reported here does not demonstrate that a particular investment has already delivered those improvements or quantify potential savings.

What happens next

The survey's forward-looking period is the next 12 months, but it is not an implementation timetable. Each respondent's expectation concerns their own firm, and the findings do not amount to a sector-wide spending commitment. Evidence of actual budget decisions and recruitment would be needed to establish how much of the anticipated expansion takes place.

Buyers and sellers can ask their agent at the outset what identity information will be required, how to submit it securely and whether any separate charge applies. Asking early provides an opportunity to clarify the process before a request becomes urgent. It does not guarantee that the firm will need no further information as the transaction progresses.

Customers should also distinguish an agent's checks from the work of their conveyancer and the registration of a completed purchase. Property Pulse UK's coverage of HM Land Registry requisitions and conveyancing checks concerns a separate part of the transaction. Thirdfort's results do not establish a connection between AML workloads and Land Registry queries.

When comparing estate agents, sellers can request a written explanation of the total fee and any additional charges, including when payment becomes due. Those costs are separate from negotiations over the property itself, explored in the report on homes selling below asking price. The AML survey provides no basis for estimating a change in either an agency's commission or a home's agreed price.

Further detail would be needed before treating the results as a precise forecast for every estate agency. The findings provided do not give fieldwork dates, a sector-by-sector breakdown of respondents or the number surveyed within each employer-size group. They also do not measure transaction delays, customer complaints or completed enforcement cases, so those outcomes cannot be inferred from the workload figures.

Why this matters

For buyers and sellers, Thirdfort's findings highlight pressure on the teams handling checks during property transactions. They do not establish that moving home will become more expensive or take longer. The practical step is to ask an agent early about identity requirements, secure document submission and any separate fees. For agency owners, the reported concerns about fragmented systems suggest that spending decisions need to consider how compliance work is organised, as well as staffing.