Towards an European Real Property Register? Fight against money laundering: analysis of the current situation and of the proposal of V anti money-laundering Directive from a registral perspective

Abstract

The fight against money laundering and tax evasion is focusing the interest of the institutions of the European Union, with the proposal to amend Directive (EU) 2015/849. What will be the 5th anti-money laundering Directive pursues the maximum possible transparency in financial transactions, which includes both the origin of the funds and the identification of the ultimate beneficiary of the assets. This entails the creation of mechanisms to record and provide information on these actual beneficiaries, both with regard to legal persons or legal agreements of trust type that intervene in different businesses, as well as to the holders of all types of assets, including Real estate. That is why the Registrars are considered obliged entities by national regulation, with duties of information, communication and due diligence measures. In this paper we intend to analyze the current situation under the 4th Directive and its implementation in Spain, as well as the new text presented by the Commission and the amendments approved by Parliament. Among these is the introduction of an article 32-b for the creation of «central registries or central electronic data retrieval systems», relative to real estate owners, and which concludes by calling on member States «to establish before January 1, 2018 a European realproperty register on the basis of the European Property Information Service (EULIS)».