For UK letting agents · post-May-2025 LSAG-2025
Sanctions screening for UK letting agents (May 2025 rule)
May 2025 brought every UK letting agent into the regulated-screening regime. Sanctions checks on tenant + landlord on every let, audit trail kept for 7 years per MLR-2017. The trade-press headlines pitch this as a £600-1k per month cost on a 200-let-per-month branch — and that's what SmartSearch + Veriphy actually cost at retail rates. Stratum's sanctions endpoint matches Veriphy's per-check pricing while covering the full LSAG-2025 expectation: OFSI + UN + EU consolidated lists, OpenSanctions PEP catalogue (FATF Recommendation 12 categories), and adverse media. Optional bundle into the letting-agent suite endpoint adds property + corporate-landlord PSC walks in one transaction at £4.95 per check.
What the May 2025 rule actually requires
Under LSAG-2025, every letting agent transaction must screen the named tenant + the landlord (individual or corporate) against the sanctions lists, plus check for PEP status and adverse-media exposure. The audit trail must be kept for 7 years and produced on HMRC inspection. The rule is enforced by HMRC under the existing MLR-2017 framework rather than via a new licensing regime, which means the inspection mode is the same one estate agents already face: random spot-checks plus targeted reviews when a tip-off lands. Failing to produce a screening record on a let where the tenant later turns out sanctioned is the worst-case scenario.
How the API fits the workflow
Drop the sanctions-screening endpoint into your existing tenant-onboarding workflow as a single POST. The response includes sanction matches with their list provenance + score, PEP matches with FATF risk-tier (HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW), and adverse-media mentions grouped by severity. Each response carries a list-version timestamp the regulator can pin to the file. For corporate landlords, the letting-agent suite endpoint walks the PSC tree (depth 5) and screens every UBO at >=25% effective stake — that closes the LSAG-2025 §B expectation around beneficial-ownership exposure.
Pricing that fits a 200-let-per-month branch
Per-check pricing matches Veriphy at £0.69 entry; volume bands cut to £0.49 at 10-pack and £0.25 at 1000-pack. The full letting-agent suite (tenant + landlord + property + corporate-landlord PSC walk + audit-cert PDF) is £4.95 per check at entry, £4.50 at 50-pack, £3.95 at 200-pack, £2.95 at 1000-pack. A 200-let-per-month branch using the suite endpoint at the 200-pack rate runs ~£790/month — undercutting SmartSearch + Veriphy combined while delivering deeper coverage in one PDF.
Frequently asked
Does this meet the May 2025 LSAG-2025 rule?
Yes. We screen against OFSI / UN / EU consolidated lists + PEP + adverse media. The audit-cert PDF (bundled in the suite endpoint) is hash-verifiable for HMRC inspection. List-version timestamps in every response pin the screening date for the audit trail.
How do you handle name variants (translations, aliases)?
The matcher normalises Cyrillic-Roman, German umlauts, Arabic transliteration. We pin the behaviour with spot-check tests against known cases (Erdoğan/Erdogan, Gaddafi/Qaddafi, Al-Assad).
How do you compare to SmartSearch / Veriphy?
Same data depth at the sanctions + PEP + adverse-media layer; per-check pricing matches Veriphy; volume bands undercut SmartSearch. The suite endpoint additionally bundles property + corporate-landlord PSC walks in one transaction at £4.95/check, which neither competitor surfaces cleanly.
What about corporate landlords?
The letting-agent suite endpoint walks the PSC tree (default depth 5) and screens every UBO at >=25% effective stake. Cycle detection + lower-bound stake aggregation through chains. Closes the LSAG-2025 §B beneficial-ownership expectation.
Is the audit trail HMRC-inspection-ready?
Each cert is a SHA-256 hash-bound PDF with the canonical content stored at /verify/<hash>. HMRC can re-verify any cert by visiting the public verifier URL printed in the PDF footer. 7-year retention matches MLR-2017.
Can I use this for monitoring (not just per-let)?
Yes. The continuous-monitoring tier ($19.99/mo for 100 entities; £49/mo for 500) re-screens daily and emails a digest on any new match. Drop tenants + landlords on the watchlist on the first let; the system alerts on any change between renewals.