Are You Ready for the Changes to Real Estate Trust Account Auditing? - Simeoni

Are You Ready for the Changes to Real Estate Trust Account Auditing?

The team at Simeoni is ready for the changes to the submission of real estate trust account audits and has developed a new system to cope with the changes.

There are a number of major proposed changes for all licensees to be aware of, these include:

– Lodgement: ALL audit reports must now be lodged for the 2019 financial year.

In the past few years only reports with breaches required to be lodged, now all reports must be electronically lodged via the NSW Fair Trading portal by the qualified auditor.

– Trust Accounts: An audit report must now be completed for each trust account. Therefore, if you have two trust accounts then two separate audit reports must be prepared and lodged.

In the past, one audit report was completed for the Licensed entity even if they had multiple trust accounts.

– Auditor Invite: Each licensed entity will require to invite an auditor to perform the audit for each trust account through a newly established portal created by NSW Fair Trading.

Licensees will receive email requests from their qualified Auditor for permission to audit each trust account.

– Qualified Audit Reports: Will no longer be referred to as qualified or not qualified. The audit report will now have breaches noted (where applicable) which will then be assessed by NSW Fair Trading to determine the cause of action, from no action required to further investigation.

– Licensee Signature: All audit reports no longer require the licensee signature before they are electronically lodged by the auditor, NSW Fair Trading will assume the auditor has received written approval for lodgement from the licensee via a signed engagement letter prior to commencement of the audit.

– NSW Fair Trading: Will now be able to monitor individual licensees better using this electronic lodgement system, they will also monitor franchisees more closely on their compliance records. This could have a big impact on franchises to maintain a higher standard of compliance.

If you are concerned about the new mandatory compliance for real estate trust account auditing, call our office on 9370 0400 to discuss how we can assist you.