Every term in the business, in plain English.

AML/CTF & compliance

AML/CTF

Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing — Australia's regime for detecting and disrupting criminal use of the financial system, established by the AML/CTF Act 2006 and regulated by AUSTRAC.

AUSTRAC

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre: Australia's financial intelligence unit and AML/CTF regulator. Reporting entities enrol with AUSTRAC, lodge reports to it, and can be audited or penalised by it.

Tranche 2

The 2024 reforms extending AML/CTF obligations to lawyers, accountants, trust and company service providers, and real estate professionals. For real estate, obligations commence 1 July 2026.

Reporting entity

A business that provides a designated service and therefore carries AML/CTF obligations: enrolment, a compliance program, customer due diligence, reporting and record-keeping.

Designated service

A service listed in the AML/CTF Act that triggers obligations. For real estate, the core designated service is brokering the sale, purchase or transfer of real property on behalf of a client. Property management alone is not a designated service.

CDD (Customer Due Diligence)

The process of identifying a customer, verifying that identity against reliable and independent sources, understanding ownership and control where the customer is a structure, and assessing money-laundering risk — before providing a designated service, and on an ongoing basis afterwards.

Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD)

Deeper checks applied when risk is higher — typically source-of-funds and source-of-wealth enquiries and senior approval. Triggered by factors such as foreign politically exposed persons, opaque structures, or unusual transaction patterns.

KYC (Know Your Customer)

The identity-verification component of CDD: collecting and verifying who the customer actually is. Often used interchangeably with CDD, though CDD is the broader obligation.

PEP (Politically Exposed Person)

An individual who holds, or has held, a prominent public position — domestically, in a foreign country, or in an international organisation — plus their family members and close associates. PEP status is not an accusation; it mandates a risk assessment and, for foreign PEPs, enhanced due diligence.

Sanctions screening

Checking a customer against government sanctions lists (Australian and international). A sanctions match, unlike a PEP match, can make it unlawful to deal with the person at all.

UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner)

An individual who ultimately owns or controls a customer — commonly assessed at 25% or more ownership or control. Where a customer is a company, trust or SMSF, CDD requires tracing through the structure until the humans are identified.

SMR (Suspicious Matter Report)

The report a reporting entity must lodge with AUSTRAC when it forms a suspicion on reasonable grounds about a customer or transaction — within 3 business days, or 24 hours where the suspicion relates to terrorism financing.

TTR (Threshold Transaction Report)

The report required when a customer makes a physical currency transaction of A$10,000 or more, due within 10 business days.

Tipping off

The criminal offence of disclosing to a customer (or anyone else) that a suspicious matter report has been made or is contemplated, or information from which they could infer it. The prohibition is why compliance workflows restrict who can see SMR activity.

AML/CTF program

The written program every reporting entity must adopt and maintain: a risk assessment of the business, customer due diligence procedures, employee training, and oversight by a compliance officer, approved at senior-manager level and kept current.

Compliance officer

The person a reporting entity appoints to oversee its AML/CTF program — the accountable point of contact for AUSTRAC and the role that approves escalations, releases holds and owns the program's operation.

Enrolment

Registration with AUSTRAC as a reporting entity, required within 28 days of first providing a designated service.

Record-keeping obligation

The requirement to retain records of customer identification, due diligence, transactions and the compliance program for 7 years, in a form capable of being produced to AUSTRAC.

Source of funds / source of wealth

Two distinct enhanced-due-diligence enquiries: source of funds asks where the money in this transaction came from; source of wealth asks how the customer accumulated their overall assets. High-risk matters may require evidence of both.

Ongoing customer due diligence (OCDD)

The obligation to keep monitoring a business relationship after onboarding — re-screening, watching for transactions inconsistent with the customer's profile, and refreshing identification when risk changes.

Rent roll & property management

Rent roll

The portfolio of properties an agency manages on behalf of owners, and the business asset that portfolio constitutes. Rent rolls are bought and sold in their own right, typically priced as a multiple of annual management income.

AAMI (Annual Average Management Income)

The average annual management fee income per property under management — the core unit of rent roll valuation. Median AAMI on Australia's eastern seaboard was about $1,838 in FY2025.

Rent roll multiple

The factor applied to annual management income when a rent roll is sold — commonly 2.5× to 3.5× for Australian residential books. Retention, arrears performance and fee quality move a book within (or beyond) that range.

Management agreement (managing authority)

The contract between a property owner and an agency authorising the agency to manage the property — the legal substance of every entry on a rent roll, and the first thing a buyer's due diligence reads.

Churn (rent roll)

The rate at which managements leave the roll — owners selling, self-managing, or moving to a competitor. Annual churn below 5% is the single biggest expander of a rent roll's sale multiple.

Arrears

Rent that has fallen due and not been paid. Properly measured from the ledger (charges due minus payments received), not from a stored flag — and usually described in days or whole rent periods behind.

Paid-to date

The date up to which a tenancy's rent is fully paid. The everyday shorthand property managers use for a tenancy's financial position.

Rent ledger

The chronological record of charges raised and payments received on a tenancy. The authoritative source for arrears, statements and (for tenants) rental references — everything else is a view of it.

Owner statement (disbursement)

The periodic account an owner receives: rent collected, minus management fees and any bills paid on their behalf, equalling the net amount disbursed to them.

Disbursement

The payment of net rental proceeds from the agency to the owner, and the record of that payment. In an ABA-based workflow, disbursements are paid in one bank batch across all owners.

ABA file

The Australian Banking Association's fixed-width payment file format. An agency uploads one ABA file to internet banking and every owner in the batch is paid in a single pass.

Trust account (real estate)

A state-regulated bank account in which an agent holds money belonging to others — rent, deposits, bonds — subject to strict rules and annual audits. Platforms avoid the requirement either by having a licensed payments provider hold funds, or by ensuring rent lands directly in accounts the agency doesn't hold on trust.

Management fee

The agency's ongoing percentage fee for managing a tenancy, typically 5–8% of rent collected, often alongside fixed administration and letting fees.

Letting fee

A one-off fee charged when a new tenancy is secured, commonly expressed in weeks of rent.

Vacancy

A managed property without a current tenancy. Vacancy costs the owner rent and the agency fees, which is why occupancy sits in every serious portfolio health measure.

Routine inspection

The periodic inspection of a tenanted property, on notice to the tenant, recording condition and surfacing maintenance — the evidence base for both owner reporting and bond outcomes.

Entry / exit condition report

The itemised record of a property's condition at the start and end of a tenancy. The entry report is the baseline every bond conversation stands on; comparing the two, item by item, is what makes bond outcomes evidence rather than argument.

Bond

The security deposit a tenant lodges (with the state's bond authority, not the agency) at the start of a tenancy, claimable against damage or unpaid rent at the end, subject to the condition-report evidence.

Rental reference

A statement of a tenant's rental history used in applications. A verified reference is one computed from the ledger — payments made, on-time rate — rather than typed by a person, and is only meaningful if a third party can check it wasn't edited.

Tenancy database

A residential 'blacklist' service listing tenants, heavily regulated by state law: listings require specific grounds, notice and a right of reply. Positive-only reference systems sit outside this regime precisely because they cannot record anything negative.

PM (property manager)

The person who runs a portfolio of managements day to day — tenant relationships, arrears, maintenance, inspections. PM workload and turnover are leading indicators of rent roll churn.

BDM (business development manager)

The role charged with growing the rent roll: winning new managements from investors, private landlords and competitor agencies.

Managements gained / lost

The rent roll's growth ledger: new managements won versus managements ended (sold, self-managing, lost to competitors), tracked in both units and fee value. Retention is measured against the opening book.

Due diligence pack (rent roll sale)

The evidence bundle a rent roll buyer or valuer examines: AAMI by property, management tenure, fee schedule, arrears history, churn with reasons, and lease expiry profile. Blind (anonymised) versions circulate before an NDA; identified versions after.

PayTo

Australia's account-to-account debit framework on the New Payments Platform: an always-on payment agreement that checks the payer's balance before debiting, eliminating the dishonour-fee cycle of legacy direct debit.

NPP (New Payments Platform)

Australia's real-time payments infrastructure, enabling instant account-to-account transfers (including Osko payments and PayID addressing) around the clock.