House deposit - Santander faster payments or CHAPS?

KTF

Yes, I agree that warning them first is a good idea as any unexpected payment will almost certainly trigger something.

badger09

Agree with innovate.

Contact Santander beforehand, or use CHAPS.

Santander have a habit of holding up relatively small (presumably much smaller than a house deposit ) payments. These show as 'Rejected' FPs and don't clear for several hours -occasionally not until the following day which could scupper your house purchase :eek:

KTF

I just checked and the solicitor is still waiting for the redemption figures from the mortgage provider before they can produce a completion statement so I cant do any transfer until I have the final figure anyway.

So the first available opportunity will be Monday lunchtime assuming they get the figures Monday am...

KTF

Just to follow up, I tried a faster payment online but due to the size I had to go to a branch.

At the branch they sent it via faster payments with no problems after seeing extra ID and a quick phone call to the fraud team to stop it bouncing.

Just waiting for the solicitor to confirm its arrival now but on the whole a reasonably stress free process.

innovate

Was it over £100K?

Thanks for getting back with an update, btw - always great to know how people could resolve their queries.

KTF

It was under 100k. The Santander FP limit is 100k and the branch said that for lump sums under that they will send it by FP by default unless the customer really wants it sent by CHAPS as the end result is the same.

For over 100k the only option is to use CHAPS which is why the solicitors always use it - with a bit of mark up of course...

When I initially tried to send it online it was from my esaver which may have caused it to refer me to the branch as they moved the money from there to my 123 account then processed it.

Given that they had to make a phone call to clear it through and the 'risk' of it not going through properly I really didn't mind going to the branch so sort it out.

By the time I got back to the office the solicitor had emailed to say that they could see the money in their account.

innovate

That's odd, because their very own website says the limit is £100K so I would expect I could £100K if I wanted, and if I had that much in my account.

You can send up to and including £100,000 to another bank using the Faster Payments service - this is the current Faster Payment scheme limit.

https://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/Satellite?appID=abbey.internet.Abbeycom&cid=1237886380034&leng=en_GB&pagename=Abbeycom%2FPage%2FWC_ACOM_TemplateA1

May be this limit only applies for current accounts, not savings ones. I had all sorts of hickups with my esaver - - e.g. I could not FP some £17K from a Lloyds account straight into my Santander esaver the other day. It had to first go to the 123, and from there into the esaver.

Not losing much sleep about it though since I don't do many such transactions and it seems there are relatively painless ways round it.

KTF

To do the transaction in branch they needed my debit card as all approval was done via the machine on my side of the counter that you put the card into - asked me to check account details, amount, etc.

I cant remember the exact error that appeared - something like the amount being too great for the channel - when I tried the initial transfer from the esaver and don't have that amount in the account to try again now

I guess I could have tried it from my current account but was happy to go to branch as (in my head) I would have someone to blame if something went wrong

innovate

KTF wrote: »

I guess I could have tried it from my current account but was happy to go to branch as (in my head) I would have someone to blame if something went wrong

Yeah, I would most likely have done the same.

Particularly after I did manage the other day to send £14.5K to a wrong payee myself. I have absolutely no explanation whatsoever how I managed to do this, because obviously I had to select the payee, and then confirm it was the right destination. Complete eclipse of the brain somehow!

I noticed the error when I looked at the transaction list immediately after the payment had left. Instantly rang Santander, in the hope the payment had been held up by their fraud team - but no such luck, the money had arrived the other end already. Luckily the recipient was a small local firm, honest to the bone, and solvent (lol), who sent the money straight back to me. So I never needed to panic - - but it was an excellent lesson in what could go wrong if you don't pay attention.

KTF

Yes , its getting close to the completion date now so could not afford the 'drama' of the money being held up or me sending it to the wrong destination by mistake.

So if you do it 'properly' then you have nothing to fear from Santander and their (allegedly over excitable) fraud team.