NS&I and house sale funds

ANGLICANPAT

Some earlier years posts suggest NS&I can be slow with their CHAPS transfers out of large sums. Anyone any recent experiences please of their speed etc to make big payments out on time for house buying purposes from their direct saver acc.

Rodders53

Last July/August, mindful of the timescales we moved a very large sum of money well in advance of completion (by about a month) from NS&I via BACS into a current account in anticipation of the need to CHAPs it on to our solicitor. {No mortgage and using deposit passed up chain so money only needed on completion}.

NS&I say it normally takes 5 working days from receipt of request IIRC but they were actually quite speedy only taking a couple of days to get the money into the account. Do not, though, leave it to the last moment the interest lost is insignificant in the grand scheme of house purchase costs and the grief not having funds ready could cause!


NS&I don't offer CHAPs as an option afaik.

https://www.nsandi.com/files/published_files/asset/pdf/direct-saver-brochure.pdf paras 41-43 refer.

{Our bottom of chain caused no end of problems to the chain by still NOT having signed contracts NOR given the deposit to their solicitors with 2 weeks to the proposed (and, nominally agreed,) move date! Even THEN the deposit monies was £1k shy of what it should have been!!!}

There may be a (small) risk by holding >£75k per person in a regular bank account {if applicable} but ... it is small.

ANGLICANPAT

Presuming your large amount in NS&I was from a previous house sale - did you get your buyers to pay the funds direct into NS&I or did you just have it paid into an ordinary bank acc and transfer it to NS&I yourself by CHAPS?

G_M

Transfer it into your c/a in advance.

agrinnall

Got to agree with everyone else, I did Faster Payments out of my NS&I account into my Nationwide Flexaccount and did the CHAPS payment to my solicitor from there.

ANGLICANPAT

G_M wrote: »

Transfer it into your c/a in advance.

Will definitely make sure this is done on purchasing of next property - with plenty of time to spare , as folk suggest.

The old property is expected to exchange/complete imminently (third time lucky hopefully) ,and as funds to be received are to sit safe in NS&I for a bit-- was just pondering whether if the buyers could send funds straight to NS&I acc instead of to Nationwide , it would save us c£25 CHAPS moving it on to NS&I .

Good that NS&I can FP it to Nationwide when a new house is found- wasnt aware of that - just presumed it would be CHAPS --so its a bonus, but I know theres the unavoidable CHAPS charge from NW to solicitor.
Thanks all.

Slinky

Rodders53 wrote: »

There may be a (small) risk by holding >£75k per person in a regular bank account {if applicable} but ... it is small.

You can get extra coverage on a temporary basis for monies in excess of £75K in these circumstances. I think they'll give you full coverage for 6 months providing it's agreed in advance with your bank.