Who is the "reporting entity" — me, my agency, or my franchise?

A reporting entity is the legal person who provides the designated service. The obligations attach to that entity — not to the individual sales agent, not to the franchisor, and not to the leadership team personally. Identifying the right entity is the first step before anything else (enrolment, Compliance Officer, programme) can be done correctly.

For a single-office independent agency, the reporting entity is usually the company holding the real estate licence — the one that signs vendor agency agreements and receives commission. Directors and the licensee in charge are not themselves the reporting entity, but they bear governance responsibility for it and can be personally exposed if the entity fails its obligations.

For multi-office groups the answer follows the corporate structure. If each office is a separately licensed company, each one is its own reporting entity and enrols separately. If multiple offices operate under one licensed entity, that entity enrols once and one programme covers all offices.

Franchises are the trickiest. National franchise brands generally do not broker transactions themselves and are not reporting entities under Table 5 Item 1. Each franchisee is its own legal entity, holds its own licence, and is its own reporting entity. The franchisor may supply programme templates or training material, but the statutory liability sits with the franchisee. A template provided by head office does not satisfy the tailoring requirement on its own — the franchisee must adapt it to its own risk profile, customer base and operations.

Reporting groups — the post-reform option

The old "designated business group" (DBG) election was abolished on 31 March 2026. It has been replaced by the reporting group regime at s 10A of the Act and Part 2 of the Rules, with lead-entity obligations at s 26U. Related reporting entities — for example, several franchisees under common ownership, or a group with separate sales and commercial entities — can elect to form a reporting group. A lead entity then holds group-level obligations like the AML/CTF programme, while each member remains individually responsible for its own customers and records.

A reporting group reduces duplicated work for genuinely related entities. It does not transfer liability up the chain, and it is not a way to shift responsibility from franchisees to a franchisor unless the franchisor itself meets the related-entity test.

The practical consequence: every legal entity that signs an agency agreement with a vendor — or a buyer's agency agreement with a buyer — is its own reporting entity with its own enrolment, programme, Compliance Officer and seven-year record set.

What to do next. Confirm with your accountant or solicitor which legal entity in your structure provides the designated service. If you sit inside a group of related licensed companies, ask whether a reporting-group election under s 10A makes sense before each entity sets up its own programme from scratch.