BACS £25000 from Nationwide to Solicitors by Friday

Romero25

I searched all the old BACS threads and seem to have a bit of a jist of what BACS is now. Still I thought it would be good to ask before going ahead and dong anything without advice, as some of the threads are many years old and things may have changed a lot.


I am paying £25000 to my solicitors for my flat by this Friday, 25th November. I have an online Nationwide FlexAccount. Solicitors say CHAPS or BACS to be paid into National Westminster Bank.

Looking on my online Nationwide Flexaccount it says CHAPS now costs £25. So looking into BACS I went to save them pounds.

Looking at my options on my Nationwide account site I assume I pick "Move money and manage payments"
"Pay a bill or send money to someone" That would be BACS? (if it is, why can they not just say it is plainly).

Or is it just easier to go into my nearest Nationwide branch on Monday and say please transfer £25000 by BACS and they do it there and then? and a few days later its all transfered over.

Any help will be great, not even heard of the BACS and CHAPS situation before a few hours ago, so google and reading this forum are the only things I have read into so far.

Thanks :beer:

pcombo

if your sending a bacs payment to your solicitor then you would pick "send money to someone". And that would go via bacs. So send it sunday it will be there for wednesday/thursday.

Although what i said is true, you might have a problem sending 25k via bacs normaly banks want you to do this via chaps.

YorkshireBoy

I'm all for saving money, but for a payment that large, unless I could send a £1 test payment first (and verify it arrived safely), I'd be paying the £25 for a CHAPS transfer.

I'm surprised the solicitor will accept a BACS transfer for such an amount though, because IIRC BACS payments can be recalled by the sending bank, ie the solicitors don't have the same 'guarantee' they have with a CHAPS payment.

Yorkie1

Firstly check whether there are daily BACS limits imposed. I'm also not convinced that BACS will work on a Sunday - it usually takes 3-4 working days to arrive. So, if the daily limit is <£25K, you are risking the money not arriving in time if you have to split it between, say, Monday and Tuesday.

Also, are you actually exchanging (or completing) on Friday? My solicitor required the funds to be cleared with her the day before - so that would be Thursday.

£25 is 0.1% of what you are transferring. Go for CHAPS.

System

Yorkie1 wrote: »

£25 is 0.1% of what you are transferring. Go for CHAPS.

Which is why the CHAPS rip-off can continue - at least until January 2012, when the Payment Services Directive will require banks to stop trousering customers' money for two nights before they actually transfer it.

Gromitt

Even then, for such an amount and for such an important payment, I think I'd prefer to give the bank £25 and leave the responsibility with them, rather than hoping the money arrives via BACS. I don't think the solicitor will be amused if you send a £1 test payment and then ask them if it arrived before sending the rest in £10K chunks (which is the most you can send using Nationwides internet banking)

Just go for chaps, its a ridiculous charge for what it is, but there is no proper alternative so you don't have a choice. Your solicitor will be charged about £30 for doing the same, which of course will be in your bill as a disbursement.

olly300

Solicitors aren't too bothered if you send them part payments of £10,000. The £1 test amount would just annoy them as someone has to do the accounts.

If you cannot guarantee you can type in the numbers correctly send them a cheque by special delivery or use CHAPS.

BTW the only people I don't trust to give their bank account numbers correctly are teenagers and old people. Simply because I've always asked people twice for their account number and found commonly that it's these groups who get their numbers confused.

Romero25

Thanks everyone for the comments and advice, many of them points I had thought about and hey its not like I will be using CHAPS often (never again I will guess haha). It does seem CHAPS is the easiest/simplest way by a mile at this very moment from the limited time and ways I can pay.

I love saving a few pound, but it is a pain knowing CHAPS costs to use. Still as said the amount I am sending is large so hey it seems the best way overall. I will have to just close my eyes and say £25 good bye

System

Indeed, if you had a better current account provider then you could have used Faster Payments e.g. Lloyds have a £25K limit.

CHAPS is best in this instance; if you had more time your solicitor would have likely have taken a cheque too.

Romero25 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the comments and advice, many of them points I had thought about and hey its not like I will be using CHAPS often (never again I will guess haha). It does seem CHAPS is the easiest/simplest way by a mile at this very moment from the limited time and ways I can pay.

I love saving a few pound, but it is a pain knowing CHAPS costs to use. Still as said the amount I am sending is large so hey it seems the best way overall. I will have to just close my eyes and say £25 good bye