One missed check.
One expensive mistake.
Is your agency covered?
From AML checks and sophisticated tenant fraud to property information that surfaces far too late, compliance has become one of estate agency's biggest operational headaches. But some of the industry's most interesting technology companies are finding smarter ways to tackle it.
There's a particular sort of panic that comes from being asked to find a document you know exists.
It's somewhere in the CRM. Or possibly an email. Maybe somebody saved it to the shared drive.
The negotiator who dealt with it has since left, and the compliance officer is on holiday.
Sound familiar?
Now imagine the person asking isn't your branch manager.
It's HMRC.
Or a solicitor who's just discovered something about the property that should have been identified months ago.
Or a landlord who's asking why an apparently convincing tenant application turned out to be fraudulent.
Different problems. Same uncomfortable question.
Can you prove you did everything you were supposed to do?
Working with estate agents and proptech suppliers through Kerfuffle, I hear plenty about the headaches that slow down otherwise good businesses.
And compliance is right up there.
Not because agents don't care about getting things right. Quite the opposite. It's because getting them right involves more documents, more checks, more systems and more responsibility than ever before.
So, for the first instalment of our weekly Agent Pain Points series, I wanted to look at the practical side of compliance.
What does good actually look like? Where are agencies most exposed? And who's doing something genuinely useful to make the whole process less painful?
A passport scan isn't an AML policy
Let's start with something deceptively simple.
A seller instructs your agency. Your negotiator collects identification, uploads a passport and marks the AML task complete.
Job done?
Not necessarily.
The regulations require estate agency businesses to take a risk-based approach to customer due diligence, covering identity verification, beneficial ownership where relevant, risk assessments and ongoing monitoring.
And yes, that means thinking about both buyers and sellers.
Under HMRC's current estate agency guidance, seller due diligence is required when establishing the business relationship, while buyer due diligence must be completed before a binding contract is entered into. Starting earlier can help prevent delays.
Then there's the question of evidence.
Could another member of your team reconstruct the checks? Would they understand why a particular transaction was considered low or high risk? Is there a clear record of additional due diligence and any subsequent changes?
That's what separates simply ticking a box from demonstrating that your business has a functioning compliance process.
From paperwork mountain to something manageable
This is where APLYiD has an interesting proposition.
Its platform brings identity verification, AML checks, business onboarding and ongoing monitoring together, designed to make due diligence less of an administrative marathon.
According to its Kerfuffle supplier profile, the platform can verify an identity in under 90 seconds and supports onboarding of individuals, businesses and trusts.
But the more interesting evidence comes from an agency already using it.
Heritage Estates, an independent letting agency in Somerset, had been struggling with time-consuming paper-based compliance processes.
After adopting APLYiD, it reported a significantly simpler onboarding process, without the previous delays involved in collecting and verifying documents.
Mandy Kimber, Director at Heritage Estates, summed up her experience in three words:
"Perfect, easy, and simple."
It's a small quote, but it captures something important.
Agents aren't necessarily asking for increasingly elaborate technology.
They want to stop wasting valuable time on processes that should be straightforward.
You can read the Heritage Estates case study and explore APLYiD's offering through Kerfuffle.
Kerfuffle member benefit: APLYiD currently advertises a first-month-free offer through its Kerfuffle profile, subject to the supplier's terms.
Of course, no identity platform removes the agency's wider responsibility to assess risk and make appropriate decisions.
But making it easier for staff to perform, record and revisit checks is a pretty compelling place to start.
The fraudsters have discovered AI, too
If you work in lettings, here's a rather unpleasant thought.
That payslip you've been examining might be completely fabricated.
So might the bank statement.
And the person on the telephone confirming the applicant's employment? Increasingly, you can't necessarily take that at face value either.
AI hasn't invented tenancy fraud.
It's simply made some of the traditional warning signs much harder to spot.
This is something Goodlord has been investigating in considerable detail.
Its 2026 research found a 78.43% year-on-year increase in referee-flagged tenancy fraud, alongside a rise in confirmed cases.
Goodlord's subsequent investigation into organised fraud rings explored how fraudulent applications can involve several people, convincing documents and even AI voice technology.
As Nishma Parekh, Goodlord's Director of Referencing, explains, a fraudulent application may involve several participants, with different people handling employment references, email accounts or company details.
That's a long way from spotting somebody who's badly altered a PDF.
When looking at a document isn't enough
The interesting development at Goodlord is its focus on direct verification rather than relying solely on documents provided by applicants.
Through its Trusted Sources approach, Goodlord can use connections to financial and employment information, including Open Banking and relevant HMRC-linked verification, to help establish whether claims are supported by reliable data.
Its September webinar, Physical Documents Are Dead, explored why this matters and how referencing needs to adapt.
For letting agents, the potential benefit extends well beyond fraud prevention.
Goodlord brings together tenant referencing, contracts, payments and other pre-tenancy processes within one platform.
And there's some substantial customer feedback behind the proposition.
Goodlord currently holds 4.9 out of 5 from 65 reviews on Kerfuffle.
Joshua Gertler of Normie & Co describes how the platform transformed the agency's approach to tenancy agreements, incoming payments and referencing, reducing the amount of work the team needed to handle manually.
It's a useful reminder that good compliance technology shouldn't simply create a better way to perform one check.
It should make the surrounding process more manageable, too.
Kerfuffle member benefit: Goodlord currently offers a free compliance check and/or process-mapping session through its Kerfuffle listing.
That's a worthwhile starting point for any agency wondering where its current processes might leave gaps.
What if the real problem is information arriving too late?
Now let's move from people to property.
Because although AML and identity verification get plenty of attention, another issue causes enormous frustration in estate agency.
Information that should have been available at the beginning of a sale suddenly appears halfway through it.
A restriction nobody knew about.
A missing document.
A question about ownership.
Something that might have been relatively straightforward to investigate before the property went on the market, but has now become another obstacle between sale agreed and completion.
And by this point, everyone is emotionally invested.
The buyer wants the keys.
The seller has started packing.
The agent is wondering whether the whole thing is about to collapse.
Making properties sale-ready before the problems begin
Moverly is approaching this challenge by bringing material information, ownership verification, identity checks and relevant legal information together much earlier in the process.
Its platform can generate material information certificates, collect key property data and connect agencies with conveyancing partners.
But what makes Moverly particularly interesting is the evidence from a property transaction pilot involving several industry partners.
In a published case study involving organisations including Connells Group, LMS, Peter Alan and TM Group, Moverly reported that its Digital Sale-Ready approach helped achieve:
- 43% fewer fall-throughs
- 35% faster completions
These are reported outcomes from the pilot, not guaranteed results for every agency.
Nevertheless, they're figures worth paying attention to in an industry where transaction uncertainty consumes an enormous amount of time.
And there are smaller, everyday success stories, too.
Nolan Irving of Irving and Sons describes Moverly's material information process as straightforward, while Adam Angus of Cooke & Millerson praises the speed of its CRM integration and the ease of using the platform.
Both have shared their experiences on Kerfuffle.
The bigger point is this.
What if we stopped treating essential property information as something to discover after a buyer has fallen in love with the house?
Surely it makes more sense to identify potential issues before everyone starts making plans.
Kerfuffle member benefit: Moverly currently advertises free vendor AML checks for the first two months when using its material information service, subject to its published terms.
The bigger opportunity: make information work harder
This isn't only about commercial technology.
HM Land Registry has also been working to make important property information easier to access earlier.
In a Kerfuffle interview, Jamie Winch, Senior Stakeholder and Innovation Manager at HM Land Registry, discussed its Local Land Charges programme.
The service brings information about planning restrictions, conservation areas, tree preservation orders and other registered local land charges into a digital system.
For agents, that means an opportunity to identify certain issues long before the conveyancing process reaches a critical stage.
Winch described four important qualities of useful property information: it should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.
And I think that's a rather good way to think about the industry's wider data challenge.
HM Land Registry's Kerfuffle profile explains how agents can access the service, including free personal searches in migrated local authority areas.
Not every compliance problem needs a new subscription.
Sometimes the improvement comes from knowing what information is already available and making better use of it.
More ways to take the pressure off
There are other useful developments worth keeping on your radar.
Credas offers digital identity verification and AML technology, including managed onboarding, screening and customer verification. Its newer developments include Credas Payments, designed to help firms recover compliance-check costs, and work towards a digital compliance wallet.
For agencies that want more control over branding, Credas currently advertises free portal branding for Kerfuffle members, normally costing approximately £1,000.
Then there's Optimus, part of Landmark Information Group.
Its focus is further along the property journey, helping agents connect clients with conveyancing and surveying services, order searches earlier and track progress.
The company has been developing its upgraded CaseManager platform, making it easier for agencies to quote, instruct and monitor cases.
Optimus currently has 5 out of 5 from 18 reviews on Kerfuffle, with customers highlighting communication, turnaround times and the support available throughout transactions.
Again, different solutions to different problems.
But the common theme is reducing uncertainty, avoiding unnecessary administration and helping agents keep transactions moving.
Could you pass a 20-minute compliance reality check?
Before signing up for anything new, here's something I'd encourage every agency to do this week.
Set aside 20 minutes.
Not for another meeting.
For a quick look at what's actually happening inside your business.
First five minutes: Check your AML process.
Find your current business-wide risk assessment and policies. When were they last reviewed? Can you show when buyer and seller checks are carried out? Are responsibilities clear?
Next five: Pick three transaction files.
Can you locate the relevant identity evidence, due diligence decisions and records? If circumstances changed, can you see what happened next?
Next five: Look at the wider customer journey.
Where are property information, ownership details, referencing evidence and other required documents stored? How much gets requested twice? What tends to arrive late?
Final five: Ask one uncomfortable question.
If the employee who knows everything about your processes left tomorrow, would the system still work?
That's often where the real problem reveals itself.
This isn't a substitute for specialist compliance advice or a formal audit.
It's simply a practical way to spot processes that depend too heavily on memory, individual employees or disconnected systems.
And if you discover a weakness, that's a useful finding.
Better to do something about it now.
The best compliance process is the one people actually follow
I don't think most agents want to become experts in every technical detail of compliance software.
They want confidence that their business is doing the right things.
That the right questions are being asked.
That important information isn't being missed.
And that their people can get on with the work they're actually good at.
Technology has a valuable role to play in achieving that, but the purpose shouldn't be to automate everything simply because we can.
It should be to make difficult tasks more reliable, reduce unnecessary work and help good agents deliver a better service.
That's why it's worth looking beyond the length of a supplier's feature list.
What are their customers saying?
What results can they demonstrate?
How does the technology fit into your existing systems?
And, perhaps most importantly, what happens when something doesn't go to plan?
Those are the questions we spend a great deal of time exploring at Kerfuffle.
Because when an inspector, landlord, buyer or solicitor asks an awkward question, you don't want to be relying on crossed fingers.
You want to know the answer. And where to find the evidence.
Find the right compliance technology, without the usual headache
Kerfuffle helps estate and letting agents explore property technology, compare providers and access exclusive supplier deals.
From APLYiD's identity and AML checks to Goodlord's tenant referencing and Moverly's upfront property information, there are practical solutions worth investigating.
And you don't need to spend hours researching them all yourself.
Explore Kerfuffle's exclusive compliance and proptech deals
Coming next: Compliance, Safety & Surveys
Our new Compliance, Safety & Surveys eGuide launches on Friday 6 November 2026, bringing together technology, resources and practical insights to help agencies manage essential obligations.
This is the first in our weekly Agent Pain Points series, looking at the everyday challenges affecting estate and letting agents and what can actually be done about them.
No unnecessary jargon.
No pretending that every shiny new platform is the answer.
Just useful advice, evidence from the industry and some very good people doing interesting things.
