Cash buyers

AdrianC

Pixie5740 wrote: »

When you say you have signed contracts. Do you mean that you have exchanged contracts?

If contracts have been exchanged without the buyer's solicitor ensuring that sufficient cleared funds are available, then the buyer is going to be on the hook for all costs up the chain until completion can go ahead. This could get VERY expensive for the buyer.

Have to admit, I don't see how the buyer's English language skills are actually relevant here - their solicitor must be able to communicate with them somehow - this is a relatively minor part of the whole transaction, in terms of communcation requirements - and it's their solicitor that the OP's solicitor will be dealing with.

I'm presuming that they're overseas resident buying for an investment?

chris_m

AdrianC wrote: »

If contracts have been exchanged without the buyer's solicitor ensuring that sufficient cleared funds are available, then the buyer is going to be on the hook for all costs up the chain until completion can go ahead. This could get VERY expensive for the buyer.

Or, worse, for the OP. Assuming that the OP is also buying and has exchanged contracts on the purchase, the costs would work their way up the chain so the OP would be liable for their seller's costs, who would be liable for their buyer's costs, etc., etc.
If the OP's buyer cannot come up with clean money to either complete the purchase or to pay the costs up the chain or, worse, is abroad and simply "disappears", the OP could be liable for the costs

AdrianC

chris_m wrote: »

If the OP's buyer cannot come up with clean money to either complete the purchase or to pay the costs up the chain

I'm presuming that the costs won't come to the cost of the property less £20k.

G_M

I suspect the signed contract is a red herring. Not yet Exchanged (just guessing).

I don't see how mortgage comes into this - solicitor should do money laundering checks whether or not a mortgage is being applied for.

There are many Chinese people-smugglers and/or those living off immoral earnings oprating in this country. That's not to say there are not also many wealthy Chinese with 'clean' sources of income, but the rules are there to distinguish the two.

Find another buyer.

DaftyDuck

One cause of this not mentioned. The massive crash in the Chinese Stock Market has caused a number of people difficulty in realising their assets - even if their assets are worth anything like they thought they were a month or two back. There may be no criminal activity, dodgy funding, people-smuggling, or even Triad involvement, just ordinary folk who have lost a fortune, or banks being less-willing to ship a shed-load of cash out of the country.

What's happening over there makes our crash of a few years back look like a lost 5p down the back of the sofa incident.

If it is a genuine insolvency, getting clarification shouldn't be too difficult. Temporary, you may choose to wait, longer-term, and you need another buyer...

G_M

DaftyDuck wrote: »

...... just ordinary folk who have lost a fortune, or banks being less-willing to ship a shed-load of cash out of the country.

..

OP said

the buyers are from China and this is where the money has come from,

which implies the money exists in this country but its source cannot be proved.

This may enlighten:

http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/support-services/advice/articles/source-of-funds-clean-or-consistent-risk/