The Expert Panel on Money Laundering in Real Estate is launching its public consultation, the B.C. government announced Friday.
The panel was appointed in late October amid concerns that B.C.’s real estate market is particularly vulnerable to money launderers, due to high prices and market volatility.
Among other things, the panel will investigate gaps in existing laws, consumer protections, and financial services regulations; the regulation of real estate professionals; and jurisdictional gaps between B.C. and the federal government.
“We need to know how our markets are being used to launder money before we can make recommendations, and it will help the panel to hear from British Columbians, especially those with direct knowledge of our real estate sector and its legal framework,” says Maureen Maloney, the panel’s chairwoman, a public policy and dispute resolution professor at Simon Fraser University and former deputy attorney general in B.C. “We encourage anyone with these insights and proposed solutions to come forward and have their voices heard.”
Alongside Maloney, it also includes Tsur Somerville, an expert on real estate, development and housing markets from UBC’s Sauder School of Business, and Brigitte Unger, a money laundering expert from the University of Utrecht.
“We’re in the middle of a serious housing crisis and we need to be diligent to ensure that our housing market is not being used as a hub to launder money,” says Carole James, B.C.’s minister of finance, in a statement. “We don’t want any gaps in our laws or regulations. Dirty money has no place in British Columbia.”
Submissions to the panel are due by Dec. 14. The panel is mandated to deliver its final report and recommendations to the government in March 2019.