House buying..are they now super ‘fraud and laundering aware’??!

It’s been years since i bought a house..going through teh process now.
It seems the solicitors (and, they say, mortgage company) need to see your bank statements to account for any sums of money you are using as a deposit..
If you’re being gifted some money, then need to ID check and look into the finances of the giftee..

Anything bar equity from a current sale needs to be REALLY looked into…

Is this a new thing? I guess it makes sense, but it’s all additinoal expense to me!!

DrP

Its been like that for the last 5 or 10 years or so. It did seem like a pretty easy to thing to fake if you really were money laundering but it might catch a few out.

Just tell them you’re russian or something, no one will bother checking then.

Dunno how new it is but yep exactly the same happened with us recently: buying a house, partially gifted, everyone and everything has to be checked for fraud and money laundering.

Maybe it’s the gifting that sets it off? I think they asked for the checks before even knowing about that though, it’s probably normal.

Why is it additional expense if you just need to document where the money’s come from?

Yes – there’s a greater onus on ‘facilitators’ to check the source of funds, and potential personal liability on the agent/lawyer etc if they don’t and it is the proceeds of crime.

Just tell them you’re russian

He’s taking his time.

Why is it additional expense if you just need to document where the money’s come from?

Because solicitors like money?! ANYTHING to charge a few extra (hundred) quid!

OK, so it seems it’s not new, I’m just out the loop!

DrP

Solicitors and legal professionals are subject to money laundering regulations, which basically means that they need to obtain information on the ‘source of funds’ for any transactions they make.

If the money is from equity it’s fairly obvious where that came from, and they’ll usually ask for evidence of where any other funds come from.

If it’s your own savings then they’ll usually ask for proof such as bank statements, if the money was a gift then they need to get evidence of who the gift was from.

They need to make sure funds are not from anyone on a sanction list, and do checks to see if the funds are from anyone who could be considered a ‘Politically exposed person’, which is basically someone who has a higher risk of being a corrupt **** involved with dodgy things.

Righto, I assumed you’d just have to supply them with a few docs as part of the standard fee.

I’m buying from my equity, so maybe I should be getting a discount (solicitor didn’t ask when quoting).

Probably best they check a few things. This would be a shock. Identity theft then house sold!

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-59069662

Righto, I assumed you’d just have to supply them with a few docs as part of the standard fee.

this was my experience – they wanted to see a paper trail for everything (which in my case meant bank statements, accounts, invoices etc) – but it didn’t cost any extra (well, obviously you’re paying for it, but it was all included in the fee)

I’m buying from my equity, so maybe I should be getting a discount (solicitor didn’t ask when quoting).

My quotes have all been “standard legal fees £xxx, ID check £49… ‘gift moniezzz reviewzzzz £300′” with an ID check for the person gifting…
So purchase from equity is the ‘easiest’ process it seems, and what the basic fees cover.

DrP

We purchased recently. We traded in a house with no mortgage so no questions were asked. A week or so before the purchase went through we had the good fortune to receive a large amount of money (£40k). We intended to use this towards the house but we are quite private (Except on here for some reason) and did not want any questions asked. So we used our own savings instead and replaced them a few days after everything went through with the other money. No issues and no questions.

A couple of weeks later we got a LOT of questions from the bank as we also had an endowment (25yrs) pay out as well so our bank wanted to know where all the money was coming from. We told them to mind their own business.

Didn’t happen with me 5 years ago, I had to provide some basic proof of funds and salary but nothing crazy

Gifted deposit adds ‘quite a bit’ extra as there are ID checks for the additional person(s) involved as well as bank statements showing the source etc. Went through that 3 years ago. Buying now and have provided 3 months of bank statements from my savings account showing the funds in there. No questions of where they came from or how long I’ve had them. No extra charge for AML though it is listed as an item on the list of tasks for the solicitor.

My daughter has just bought a house, and I gave her some of the deposit. I got a letter from her solicitors asking me where I got the money – sale of a house, sale of shares, pension lump sum or savings. Since it was the latter, they then asked how long it had taken me to save the money and what my average earnings and outgoings were during that period. Also wanted me to send original photo ID, not copies. I thought this was a bit odd, since the point of photo ID is to compare the photo with the person in front of you, and they’ve never seen me. But that was ‘the process’.

We did a cash purchase for the land our house was built on – just gave the solicitor the copy of the letter confirming the sale of our previous house, showed him the NS&I statements confirming where the money was ‘resting’ earning naff-all interest to pay for the house build, plus passports etc and it was done in 10 minutes. I expect that if you rock up with bank statements from BVI or other tax-havens it might get a bit trickier.

We had to provide proof of funds, but all documents were uploaded directly via the mortgage provider’s portal, the solicitor wasn’t involved at all.

It isn’t just houses either. My MIL died last Christmas and left a cash legacy to our adult kids. They used their gift to open a lifetime ISA each, and Mrs Scape and I shred the rest into investment portfolios. We all had to send documentary evidence of the source of the cash to the investment company.

you reckon a ‘go fund me’ for “DrPs dream triple garage” would:
a – get me any money from you kind souls…
2 – cut it with the bank/money laundering squad…

😉

DrP

A couple of weeks later we got a LOT of questions from the bank as we also had an endowment (25yrs) pay out as well so our bank wanted to know where all the money was coming from. We told them to mind their own business.

If it triggers an enquiry from the bank, then they may be required to pass that report up the chain to various people with an interest in whether there may be some dodgy dealings going on, like HMRC.

Probably easier to be helpful to the bank just in case for some reason you tick too many boxes further up the line

Outside Hobo’s house now…

A small donation to the Conservative Party will ensure all questions quietly disappear and any irregularities ignored.

Really?

I bought a house 6mo ago and had none of this.

Are you sure your solicitor is not just charging spurious necessary “ID check” fees to extract more money from you like letting agents do….?

We had to do this a while back when we paid cash and it seemed like a load of bollocks. At best they were palming off the responsibility to the bank who would possibly have been asking questions if we were banking large volumes of cash regularly. As it was the solicitors just saw we had the money and accepted our story as to how we’d got it (which was largely true as it happens).

We’re due to exchange in two weeks, haven’t been asked to show documentation about origin of funds, though we did have to declare it.