From January 10, 2021, the 115-FZ law is amended in Russia, according to which real estate transactions will check Rosfinmonitoring. And banks will ensure that money from the sale of the apartment, went to the "good goals". What difficulties in this regard are expecting buyers and sellers? Can this lead to the rise in the cost of housing? Bankiros.ru learned about this from experts.
Recall that according to the law 115-FZ "On counteracting the legalization (laundering) of the income obtained by criminal means", Rosfinmonitoring controls only those transactions concerning the transition of ownership. From the beginning of 2021, the Office will also control the purchase and sale transactions in the amount of over 3 million rubles. Also, other real estate transactions will be also under the control of the department: rent, mortgage, commercial hiring.
The expert of the service to verify the legal entities of the "Contour. Advisions" Svetlana Koroshnova explains that the amendments in the 115-FZ, adopted, in order to, first of all, to reduce the flow of duplicate messages to Rosfinmonitoring, to structure the operations to be mandatory.
She also noted that the process of making transactions for citizens and organizations did not change, so nor physical nor legal entities face additional difficulties.
What will change?According to Kirlanova, if earlier man sold or bought an apartment more expensive than 3 million rubles through the real estate agency, then after the completion of the transaction and registration of property rights, the real estate agency sent a message to Rosfinmonitoring. At the same time, if a person translated part of money for a transaction through a bank, the bank, seeing the purpose of payment, requested to provide a registered sales agreement and also sent a report to Rosfinmonitoring. That is, the message to Rosfinmonitoring was duplicated.
Now organizations will submit a report not about real estate operations (as earlier), but about the next operation with cash carried out in the framework of this real estate transaction, explained Bankiros.ru interlocutor. Thus, the real estate agencies are generally removed the obligation to submit reports under the contract of sale of property. This duty completely lies only on organizations through which cash payments pass.
What may be difficulties?The Crowe CRS lawyer Evgenia Zainchukovskaya notes that with the entry into force of the amendments there will be not only buying and selling, but also for renting real estate.
"At the same time, the literal reading of paragraph 1.1 of Art. 6 FZ 115-FZ, containing an indication of the "transaction" in the singular, generates a question whether the conclusion of several lease agreements about the same real estate facility, including in order to circumvent limitations of 3 million rubles, regarded as a unified Economic operation subject to mandatory control? To date, this question remains open, "says Zainchukovskaya. In which case, the deal with real estate can be canceled?Zenchukovskaya noted that the authorities accepted these amendments, there is nothing surprising, because real estate is one of the classical ways to legalize criminal outgoing funds. The fact is that it has high liquidity. In addition, the transaction can be carried out without intermediaries and through cash. There are no big costs associated with the acquisition of objects or surrendering them in the hiring, said Bankiros.ru interlocutor.
She also warned that the real estate deal could be recognized as suspicious if the parties are trying to hide their identity, the transaction price clearly exceeds the socio-economic position of its parties, the buyer or tenant asks to speed up the procedure for making a transaction without any reasons or eliminate the calculations through the bank. A chain of transactions committed during a short period of time, funded by a third party due to money received from abroad, can also attract.
Will housing prices change?Kirlarov is confident that the 115-FZ amendments will not lead to a change in the real estate market and, in particular, to raise housing prices.
Zenchukovskaya also noted that the strengthening of control in itself will not lead to an increase in housing prices, because it does not impose any additional duties on the parties.
I do not agree with this vice president of QBF Maxim Fedorov. He is confident that the emerging additional tax burden on real estate sellers will inevitably lead to an increase in the price of an object for the amount of the tax paid.