FINTRAC record types real estate brokerages must keep

Ask three people at a brokerage which records FINTRAC actually requires and you will usually get three lists — all partially right. The obligations live in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and its regulations, and FINTRAC publishes sector-specific guidance for real estate that describes them in detail. What follows is a plain-language map of the main record types, written for the people who create these records on live deals: admins, conveyancers, and managing brokers.

The usual disclaimer applies with full force here: this is orientation, not advice. FINTRAC’s published guidance is the authority on what a record must contain, and your compliance officer owns how your brokerage meets it.

Who the obligations attach to

Real estate brokers and sales representatives are reporting entities under the PCMLTFA when they act as agents in the purchase or sale of real estate. In practice, the brokerage carries the program: the policies, the training, the risk assessment, and the record set all need an owner, and that owner is typically the compliance officer working under the managing broker. Unrepresented parties and referral-only arrangements raise their own questions — flag those to your compliance officer rather than improvising.

Receipt of funds records

Whenever a brokerage receives funds in the course of a real estate transaction — a deposit is the everyday case — it generally must create a receipt of funds record. The record captures more than the amount: who provided the funds, the account details where applicable, the date, the purpose, and the transaction it belongs to. There is a narrow set of exceptions in the regulations (funds received from certain financial entities, for example), which is exactly the kind of edge your policies should settle in advance rather than leaving to the person at the desk.

The operational failure mode is familiar. The e-transfer arrives, someone notes it in a spreadsheet, and the prescribed details are reconstructed later — or not. A receipt of funds record created at the moment the money arrives costs a minute. The same record reconstructed during an examination costs an afternoon.

Large cash transaction records — and the LCTR

Cash of $10,000 or more received in a single transaction, or in multiple transactions within 24 hours that total $10,000 or more, generally triggers two things: a large cash transaction record, and a Large Cash Transaction Report (LCTR) filed with FINTRAC within the prescribed window — generally 15 days. Real estate deposits in cash at this scale are rare, which is precisely the danger: rare events are the ones staff have never handled before. Your policies should make the path obvious — who is told, what is recorded, who files.

A related record exists for large virtual currency transactions, with its own report type. If your brokerage would ever touch crypto-denominated funds, that is a policy conversation to have before the first transaction, not after.

Client identification and verification records

Verifying the identity of clients is the obligation most agents know, but the record behind it is what an examiner reads. For individuals, the accepted methods include the government-issued photo identification method, the credit file method, and the dual-process method — each with prescribed details to record: what was relied on, reference numbers, dates, and who did the verifying. For entities, confirmation of existence and beneficial ownership come into play: who owns or controls the entity, recorded and kept current.

Alongside verification sit the connected determinations: whether a third party is involved in the transaction, and whether the client is a politically exposed person or head of an international organization in the situations where that check applies. Each determination is itself a record — including, notably, the reasonable measures you took when you could not get an answer.

Business relationships and ongoing monitoring

Once a brokerage has had to verify a client’s identity in the course of transactions more than once, a business relationship generally forms — and with it, two quieter obligations: keeping a record of the purpose and intended nature of the relationship, and conducting ongoing monitoring. Monitoring means periodically reviewing the relationship against what you know — does the activity fit the client’s profile? — on a schedule that reflects the client’s risk rating, and keeping records of the measures taken and the information obtained.

Ongoing monitoring is the obligation most likely to exist on paper and nowhere else, because nothing in a transaction forces it to happen. It needs a calendar, an owner, and a record — the classic shape of work that a review queue handles well and an inbox handles badly.

Suspicious transaction reports

There is no dollar threshold on suspicion. When there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a transaction — attempted or completed — is related to money laundering or terrorist financing, a Suspicious Transaction Report is submitted to FINTRAC as soon as practicable. Internally, the trail matters: what was observed, who escalated it, what the compliance officer decided. Tipping off the client is prohibited, which is another reason the internal escalation path should be private, documented, and known to everyone who touches deals.

Retention: five years, retrievable

Most prescribed records must generally be kept for at least five years and be producible to FINTRAC within a reasonable time on request. Retention is the quiet half of every obligation above: a record that exists but cannot be found fails the practical test. Storage that survives staff turnover, office moves, and system changes is a compliance control in its own right.

If your brokerage is still assembling this record set from inboxes and shared drives, the fix is less about heroics and more about where records land the first time. OpSphere DealFlow keeps identification records, funds events, review sign-offs, and deal history on the deal record itself — so evidence exists as a set. It will not make you compliant; it will make your compliance visible. For the obligations in fuller plain language, start with the FINTRAC guides in our compliance hub.