When practitioners in family law and wills and estates hear the words “anti-money laundering obligations,” the natural instinct is to assume it does not apply to them. That assumption is worth examining carefully as 1 July 2026 approaches.

InfoTrack’s Family Law Specialist Bree Staines, and Product Specialist Lara O’Neil recently joined the City of Sydney Law Society for a webinar dedicated to unpacking exactly this question. Their aim was direct: to correct a common and consequential misconception, and to give family law and estate practitioners a practical framework for understanding where their obligations begin and end under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, as expanded by the Tranche 2 reforms.

Do AML/CTF Tranche 2 reforms apply to family and estate lawyers?

The Act does not capture legal practitioners based on their practice area. It captures them based on their activities. This is the point Bree opened with, and it is the lens through which every family law and estate matter needs to be assessed from 1 July 2026 onwards.

A practitioner who handles parenting disputes exclusively is unlikely to be affected. A practitioner who prepares financial agreements, implements property transfers, manages trust account funds in connection with a mediation outcome, or establishes trust structures as part of estate planning is a different matter entirely. The relevant question at every stage of a matter is not “what kind of law do I practise,” but “what am I doing in this specific transaction and is it one of the nine designated services defined under the Act.”

Which of the nine designated services apply to family and estate lawyers?

Table 6 of Section 6 of the Act identifies nine categories of designated service. Several of these are particularly relevant to family law and estate practitioners.

Real estate transactions is one of the most triggered categories across both practice areas. In a family law context, this is engaged when a practitioner is actively implementing a property transfer, for example under a financial agreement or as part of a mediation outcome. The trigger is the transactional work itself, not the drafting of the agreement. In estate administration, it arises when selling or transferring real estate outside of a Grant of Probate or a court order.

Body corporate and legal arrangement transfers catch many practitioners by surprise. In family law, transferring a trust interest, restructuring a family trust as part of a settlement, or preparing deeds of succession for trustees and appointors under a financial agreement can all fall within this category. In estates, changing a trustee or appointor, or transferring corporate entities to beneficiaries outside a court-ordered process, is similarly captured. The key qualifier is that this is only a designated service where the work is not pursuant to a court or tribunal order.

Receiving, holding, controlling or managing property is among the broadest categories. If funds flow through a firm’s trust account as part of a mediation agreement rather than a court order, that activity is in scope. The concept of “transit money,” funds that pass through the trust account on their way to another destination, is specifically identified in AUSTRAC’s published guidance as a trigger.

Creating or restructuring a body corporate or legal arrangement is particularly important for estate planners. Drafting and executing trust deeds, establishing testamentary trusts where the trust body will transact, and creating corporate trustees as part of an estate plan all fall within this category. For family lawyers, implementing or negotiating trust structures as part of a financial agreement can also engage this service.

The remaining categories, covering equity or debt financing, shelf company sales, acting on behalf of a person in a body corporate, and providing a registered office address, are less commonly triggered but worth understanding if matters involving family companies or corporate entities arise.

What is excluded from the AML/CTF designated services?

Understanding the exclusions is as important as understanding the inclusions. As confirmed by AUSTRAC’s published guidance, transactions that are pursuant to a court or tribunal order are generally not designated services.

For family law practitioners, this means implementing a property transfer under a court-made consent order falls outside the scope of the Act. Drafting or executing a binding financial agreement where no transaction is occurring, parenting proceedings, child support advice, and legal aid and mediation services are also not captured.

For estate practitioners, preparing wills, powers of attorney for a natural person, and enduring guardianship documents are outside scope. Obtaining a Grant of Probate is not captured, nor is acting under a natural person’s power of attorney. General probate administration and the creation of testamentary trusts are also excluded.

Across both areas, pure advisory and opinion work, court-ordered work, and holding money pursuant to a court or tribunal order sit outside the reach of the designated services.

This is a meaningful carve-out. Many matters will continue to involve substantial work that does not trigger any obligations under the Act. The compliance analysis, however, must be applied fresh each time a matter involves a transactional element that is not pursuant to a court order.

How to determine whether you are providing a designated service

One of the practical challenges raised during the webinar is that applying the nine designated service categories to specific matters requires careful judgment, and that analysis needs to happen consistently across a practice.

To help practitioners work through this, InfoTrack has developed a Designated Services Checker tool, a structured tool that guides you through the relevant questions for each matter type, helping you determine whether a designated service is being provided and what obligations flow from that determination. Rather than relying on ad hoc assessments, the Checker gives practitioners a consistent, documented framework they can use at the point of matter intake, which is also where that analysis needs to happen.

When does a suspicious matter report need to be filed?

The Act introduces reporting obligations that go beyond identity verification. AUSTRAC has identified a range of indicators that should prompt practitioners to consider filing a Suspicious Matter Report. Critically, the threshold is not proof of wrongdoing. It is reasonable grounds for suspicion.

In family law matters, these indicators can include a client who is reluctant to disclose the source of funds during financial disclosure, large or unusual deposits into a trust account that do not match the nature of the matter, funds originating from high-risk jurisdictions, requests to disburse settlement proceeds across multiple accounts without a clear reason, or evasiveness about the origin or nature of assets.

In estate matters, the indicators AUSTRAC identifies include estate planning documents prepared for clients with assets disproportionate to their known circumstances, unexplained use of complex discretionary trust structures, and situations where the deceased is known to have received funds by unlawful means.

Across both areas, transactions involving cryptocurrency, frequent overseas transfers, back-to-back property transactions with rapidly escalating values, and financial activity inconsistent with a client’s known profile are all worth examining carefully.

None of these indicators, standing alone, establishes wrongdoing. They are prompts to ask deeper questions and, where a satisfactory explanation is not forthcoming, to exercise the reporting obligations the Act requires.

How InfoTrack supports AML/CTF compliance for legal practitioners

InfoTrack has supported the legal profession with verification of identity and know your client solutions for decades. The Compliance Centre brings those capabilities together into a single, structured workflow designed to help practices meet their AML/CTF obligations from 1 July 2026.

The platform supports compliant VOI with a clear audit trail, Ongoing Customer Due Diligence, Enhanced Due Diligence for higher-risk clients, and the staff onboarding checks required under the Act. The digital client onboarding check is a single, bundled process covering VOI, a KYC questionnaire, and PEPs, sanctions, and adverse media screening.

Bree’s practical advice from the webinar is worth restating. Even where a matter falls outside the designated services, conducting thorough identity verification on all clients is good practice. The compliance benefit is clear, and it reflects the level of professionalism clients have every right to expect.

For practices that have not yet reviewed their matter intake and file management processes against the new requirements, now is the right time to do that work. The obligation to assess designated services, conduct customer due diligence, and manage ongoing risk needs to sit somewhere in the workflow. Building those habits ahead of 1 July is considerably easier than retrofitting them under time pressure.

Continue the conversation

If you would like to go deeper on any of the topics covered in this article, the full webinar with Bree and Lara is available to watch on demand. It runs through the nine designated services in detail, covers the exclusions, and includes a live demonstration of the InfoTrack Compliance Centre.

To see how the Compliance Centre can be configured for your practice, book a demonstration with the InfoTrack team. The setup, training, and AML/CTF programme infrastructure, including risk assessments, policies, processes, record-keeping, and AUSTRAC reporting, are available at no charge. You pay only for the digital client onboarding check, which can be disbursed to the client in the same way you manage other search costs today.

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