Accountant's Report
PPD’s must provide an Accountant’s Report or HealthCheck for every company they are legally responsible for. This must be done on an annual basis. All companies will be contacted approximately 20 weeks before their Client Money Protection (CMP) expiry date, they will be asked to provide a report covering the previous 12 months, from the time of the request. The report must be received by Propertymark prior to your CMP expiry date.
Reports must be completed by a chartered or certified accountant who is a member of one of the Financial Reporting Council's Recognised Supervisory Bodies (RSBs) and has a practicing certificate. The accountant must not have a connection to anyone at the company during the accounting period stated in the report.
Eligibility
An Accountant’s Report or financial HealthCheck is not required if your company is regulated by RICS or the Law Society of Scotland. If you have Client Money Protection (CMP) with Money Shield, an Accountant’s Report or HealthCheck will not be required until your CMP expires.
Where client funds are held subject to the Estate Agents Act 1979, the Accountant’s Report must be completed by a registered auditor as per section 1239 of the Companies Act 2006. This refers to pre-contract or contract deposits in connection with the purchase of landed property or a connected contract. This does not apply if you only hold client funds in connection with lettings.
Client money must be held in a bank or building society regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) with permission to accept deposits under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. More info...
New companies and PPDs
Submit an Accountant’s Report immediately if your company has not had an accounting year-end since handling client money or since starting to use a CASP. The report needs to cover the period from when your company began handling client money (or began using a CASP) up until the present day (interim report).
Your accountant should complete as many of the 17 tests on pages 1–3 of the Accountant’s Report as they can, and complete at least one reconciliation.
PPDs applying for membership (and current members whose newly acquired company has already had an accounting year-end) will need to submit a report immediately for the company's most recent financial year.