AML Is Upon Us - Here’s What You Actually Need to Have in Place

Not legal advice. AUSTRAC’s guidance for legal practitioners and your professional body are the authoritative reference for your specific obligations. This covers the practical preparation picture for sole operators.

If you’ve been meaning to sort your AML preparation and haven’t quite got there yet, this is the post for you. And the news is: there’s still time to do this properly, but not time to keep putting it off.

AML/CTF obligations for conveyancers commence 1 July 2026. AUSTRAC registration has been open since the end of March. Your professional body has resources. The information is available. The question now is whether you have the right things actually in place.

The three things that actually have to be done before 1 July

Registered with AUSTRAC. If this hasn’t happened yet, it needs to happen this week. Not next week, not when things quiet down. This week.

An AML/CTF programme specific to your practice. Not a template that looks like it might be close enough. An actual programme that reflects how your practice operates, the clients you work with, and the types of transactions you handle. Your professional body likely has guidance and template frameworks to help with this, but the document needs to be yours.

A customer due diligence process that you can actually run consistently on every file. Written down. Checklist form. Something that will happen properly on matter 47 in September the same way it happened on matter 1 in July, regardless of how busy things are.

Everything else flows from those three things being in place properly. If any of them aren’t done yet, that’s where the next two weeks need to go.

The part people keep underestimating

The AML programme is a document you create once (and review regularly). The CDD process is something that happens on every single client matter from 1 July indefinitely.

For each new matter, you’re collecting identity documents, verifying them, assessing the risk profile of the client and transaction, documenting everything, and keeping those records for the required period. If something is outstanding, you’re following it up before the matter proceeds.

Think about your average month. How many new matters do you open? That’s how many times this process runs. Every month. On top of everything else you’re already doing.

For sole operators doing all their own admin, that addition is real and it’s ongoing. It’s not a one-time compliance exercise. It’s a permanent increase in the per-matter administrative workload.

The records question

AML obligations include maintaining records for defined minimum periods. That means your current filing and document management system needs to support this without creating a separate manual burden.

If your files are well-organised and your matter management system is set up properly, this might just be a matter of making sure CDD documentation is captured in the right place consistently. If your filing has been a bit ad hoc, now is a good time to sort that before the obligation to retain specific records kicks in.

If you’ve been thinking about getting admin support before July

May is the practical window. Not because June is too late to start, but because getting a working arrangement established before 1 July means your systems are actually functioning before the compliance requirements add to the load.

The per-matter CDD tasks, collecting documents, following up on outstanding verification items, maintaining records properly, these are exactly the kind of systematic, procedural work that specialist admin support handles well. They don’t require your qualification. They require accuracy, consistency, and someone whose job it is to make sure they get done on every file.

Conveyancers who walk into July with reliable admin support already in place and their AML processes sorted are going to have a significantly smoother experience than those trying to absorb both at the same time.

If you want to talk through what getting support in place before July actually looks like, that’s exactly what the discovery call is for.

BMVA provides remote admin support built specifically for conveyancers across Australia. Book a free call and let’s work out whether we’re the right fit for your practice.