FICA Compliance Without a Compliance Officer

Ask ten small estate agency or law firm owners whether FICA requires them to hire a compliance officer, and most will say yes, usually because that's what a software vendor told them. It isn't what the Act says.

Section 42A of FICA requires every accountable institution to appoint a person with sufficient competence and seniority to ensure compliance with the Act and its Risk Management and Compliance Programme (RMCP). Where the institution has no board, which describes most small agencies and firms, that responsibility sits with senior management or whoever holds the highest authority in the business. For a two-partner firm, that's a partner. For a sole proprietor, it's the owner. The Act creates a compliance function, not an org chart entry, and it places no requirement on that person to hold a legal or compliance qualification.

What actually matters at this size

The appointment still has to be real. It needs to be documented in writing, the person needs genuine authority to pause a transaction or escalate a concern, and the firm needs a documented RMCP for that person to actually run. What a small firm doesn't need is a new hire or a department, because the Act was written to let a function be exercised by one person with real standing, not staffed by a team.

Worth knowing

The most common inspection finding for small firms isn't the absence of a compliance officer. It's an appointment made on paper years ago with no RMCP behind it and no record that the role has ever actually been exercised. An untested appointment reads the same as no appointment at all.

Where this leaves small agencies and firms

If your firm has never formally documented who holds this role, or the RMCP behind it, the fix isn't a hire. It's making the existing function real and provable.

This is exactly the gap Lucere closes. It logs every due diligence step, verification, and consent against a client file the moment a matter opens, so whoever holds the compliance role in your firm has a complete, dated record to point to rather than a memory to reconstruct.