Buying a home, electronic transfer ?

DWMASG

I am considering buy a property in the UK, but live abroad. I have UK bank account and wondered if I would be able to pay Solicitors by electronic transfer ? never used it before, but assume same as using a card type transaction.

Wrote to several Solicitors about this in Wolverhampton area, only a couple replied, with extortionate charges.... but no answer to the main question of Electronic transfers.

Anyone done same, as cheque payments have been phased at lots of places.

Thanks

agrinnall

I would be surprised if any solicitor doesn't accept electronic transfers both for payment for the property and for their fees. But living abroad I would expect you to have to jump through more hoops than usual to prove that you're not money laundering.

DWMASG

agrinnall wrote: »

I would be surprised if any solicitor doesn't accept electronic transfers both for payment for the property and for their fees. But living abroad I would expect you to have to jump through more hoops than usual to prove that you're not money laundering.

Thought that may get mentioned. Cost of back and forth is costly. So thought about transfer to a family member who could but it for me perhaps ?

p00hsticks

DWMASG wrote: »

Thought that may get mentioned. Cost of back and forth is costly. So thought about transfer to a family member who could but it for me perhaps ?

I'm not sure that 'someone from overseas has given me the money to buy a house for them' would make things any easier on the money laundering front !

DevCoder

You can pay by SWIFT, should be accepted by anyone really.

http://www.swift.com/index.page?lang=en

There will be slightly enhanced AML checks but nothing excessive as most of the KYC will already be with the remitting bank and solicitor.

agrinnall

The OP doesn't need to pay by SWIFT though as they have a UK bank account already (although if it has to be funded from overseas it may be easier to send the money straight to the solicitor - but it may not).

JuicyJesus

agrinnall wrote: »

The OP doesn't need to pay by SWIFT though as they have a UK bank account already (although if it has to be funded from overseas it may be easier to send the money straight to the solicitor - but it may not).

Sending the money direct to the solicitor would make more sense, since not only would it save on one lot of fees but also the UK bank would probably want the OP to physically be in a branch to carry out the transaction.

DWMASG

Money is all in UK fund accounts or saving accounts, would need to put it all in one account I think, but is there a limit on how much I could put in one account before tax or anyone may look into it ? Its all legal, and been taxed as savings already, but someone said anything over 6,500 would get looked into ?

Not claiming any benefits so though I was okay and as said already payed tax.

Seems so difficult to do anything these days without worrying.

greyteam1959

The first thing a solicitor will do when you find one is to prove your identity.
They will want to see & photocopy a passport & or a driving licence & a recent utility bill. They will also do an online identity check.
As soon as you are 'on their books' you will be able to do a bank transfer.
HTH

agrinnall

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Sending the money direct to the solicitor would make more sense, since not only would it save on one lot of fees but also the UK bank would probably want the OP to physically be in a branch to carry out the transaction.

This is made moot by the OP telling us that the money is already in the UK, but in case anyone else is reading with money overseas...

Your answer may be the correct one, but it depends on how much needs to be transferred and what UK bank the customer's account is with - if the amount is lower than that bank's FPS limit then there would be no difference in charges (SWIFT to customer account rather than to solicitor's account but no subsequent CHAPS charge) and the FPS should be able to be done by the customer through their online banking. The advantage I would see is that the customer can be certain that the money has arrived in the UK before the date it has to be transferred to the solicitor, although of course it could equally be transferred to the solicitor early too.

Gromitt

mervyn11 wrote: »

The first thing a solicitor will do when you find one is to prove your identity.
They will want to see & photocopy a passport & or a driving licence & a recent utility bill.

Last time I used a solicitor to buy a property, they never asked for any of those. In fact, I never even visited the solicitor in question as they were about 120 miles away! Everything was done over the phone apart from a few forms I had to sign and post back. Funds I sent to them over CHAPS as the £25 charge for doing that was cheaper than the hassle of multiple payments over several days.