Solicitor asking for excessive proof of savings

harryandedwardsmum

Hi
I hope someone can offer some help or reassurance... A bit of background: when DH and I met we had both purchased a property. In the 5 years or so since those were purchased prices rocketed so we were very very lucky that we had two lots of equity. This meant that on buying a home together in 2006 we had a small mortgage which we subsequently paid off in 2010.
Since 2010 we have therefore had no mortgage, no other debt and relatively low outgoings. We have been religiously saving money every month as we both earn a good wage, my DH gets good quarterly bonuses and I do some self employment on the side as an exam marker.
Fast forward to 2017 and we want to buy a new house in a new area to get our children into better schools. We found a house we love and have been in the 'buying and selling' process for over 3 months now. We were expecting to exchange yesterday and then out of the blue our solicitor started demanding additional evidence of our proof of funds (originally we'd provided 3 bank statements as requested and thought no more about it).
The house we are buying is £535,000. Some of the payment is from the sale of our house, £350,000 and we are making up the rest and paying the fees with cash. So in all this is £217,000.
A lot I realise. But we have been so frugal over the years, shop in Primark / Aldi, holiday in Premier Inn, don't tend to go out much. Sounds boring, actually! But I now feel like we're being treated like criminals.
I was first asked for an additional 3 months of current account statements and a statement from the savings account showing that money arriving in the account so they could cross reference them.
Then another 2 current account statements showing my DH's quarterly bonuses.
Then invoices and proof of receiving payment for my self employment along with a statement of what it is I do. They didn't specify the duration so I provided a year's worth.
Then they wanted the rest of the current account statements going back a full 12 months.

Then it was 4pm yesterday and our conveyancer said she'd passed it all to her team leader to see if that was acceptable.

Is that going to be it now? I have been physically sick today over it all. We haven't done an illegal thing in our lives, and I feel like my integrity is being questioned. It's also holding up exchange, the people we are buying from want to complete on 23rd August. Our buyers are asking why exchange didn't happen on Friday as we all expected. I'm angry that at this 11th hour this is happening too, we could have done this weeks ago.

Does anyone have any advice or reassurance they can offer? I can't quite believe this is happening! I do understand it is for money laundering checks but it seems excessive and I am fearful this is going to affect the house purchase now, as I don't know what else I'm going to be asked for and whether I can dig back far enough. I tend to move accounts around to get the best interest rates, pitiful as they have been lately, and I have multiple accounts at any one time due to FSCS limits.

So much for working very hard and saving.

shortcrust

This is all about timescale from my point of view.

I don't think what they're asking for is unreasonable. It sounds like they're covering themselves against money laundering. You've not lied about anything so there shouldn't be any problems in providing evidence of where the savings come from.

However, I'd be fuming that this happened at the last minute. Your solicitor should have done this weeks ago. If I were you I'd be directing queries about the delay to your solicitor and I'd be complaining about what can only be described as an oversight.

harryandedwardsmum

I suppose it is a lot of money to have saved. They seem to be implying that no one could save that much! Do you think they will come back on Monday with further demands? I've only heard of people being asked for 3, or exceptionally 6, months of statements. I'm worried they think we're criminals as they've already asked for 12 months worth...

Yes I am fuming about the lateness of it. If they ask for more on Monday and don't shift to exchange I will complain about the lateness of it all.

glentoran99

harryandedwardsmum wrote: »

I suppose it is a lot of money to have saved. They seem to be implying that no one could save that much! Do you think they will come back on Monday with further demands? I've only heard of people being asked for 3, or exceptionally 6, months of statements. I'm worried they think we're criminals as they've already asked for 12 months worth...

Yes I am fuming about the lateness of it. If they ask for more on Monday and don't shift to exchange I will complain about the lateness of it all.

The aren't "implying" anything they are simply following the law

bxboards

I was in a similar situation when I bought my house for cash a few years back for a similar amount.

They are just following anti money laundering laws - worry when they stop talking to you! Its not an excessive amount, if you could both save 1k a month from wages then add the odd bonus over 7 years, it's only about 31k a year going into savings.

shortcrust

glentoran99 wrote: »

The aren't "implying" anything they are simply following the law

I think this is right. They've not suddenly become suspicious, but have rather thought "oh no, we've not got the info we need!". The question I'd be asking (and pressing firmly) is why this is being asked for now at a stage when things have to be delayed. Have regulations changed? Has new info come to light? If not, they knew they needed this information from the start. They've messed up and are trying to frame it as 'needing extra info'.

harryandedwardsmum

Hi bxboards, thank you for your reply I was hoping someone in the same situation would come along. Yes, we have £2,000 left over each month (lucky us!) plus DH gets about £3k bonus every quarter after tax, plus I make £3,000 on my self employment each year.

£24,000 + £12,000 + £3,000 = £39,000 per year. x 7 = more than enough!

I do hope they come to that logical conclusion on Monday and not demand anything more.

harryandedwardsmum

shortcrust wrote: »

I think this is right. They've not suddenly become suspicious, but have rather thought "oh no, we've not got the info we need!". The question I'd be asking (and pressing firmly) is why this is being asked for now at a stage when things have to be delayed. Have regulations changed? Has new info come to light? If not, they knew they needed this information from the start. They've messed up and are trying to frame it as 'needing extra info'.

Thank you shortcrust. It does seem like they 'forgot' although they did suggest that it was a lot of savings for us to have accrued, hence my perception that we're being treated with suspicion. :-(

SuboJvR

It's not much consolation but for my husband's visa applications, i need to supply two years of paper ORIGINAL bank statements (or get online prints certified by the bank).

It is a huge faff, but you will get there. As you say you've not heard of people needing to provide as much evidence of savings as yourselves but I would wager that in the majority of cases most people have sufficiently less saved therefore the effort is correlated with the amount in question.

Try not to worry

harryandedwardsmum

My DH is also of the view that the evidence correlates to the amount. I think that's why I'm worried they will ask for more and more come Monday. I've already spent significant time downloading the statements and locating invoices!

Visa application - sounds like a nightmare, thank you for sharing!

shortcrust

harryandedwardsmum wrote: »

Thank you shortcrust. It does seem like they 'forgot' although they did suggest that it was a lot of savings for us to have accrued, hence my perception that we're being treated with suspicion. :-(

I'm sitting here getting cross on your behalf, and that's despite wine and sunshine! It is a lot of savings but they must have known that from the start. What's changed over the last few days? It's their job to think "oh crikey what a lot of savings, we'll need to document a certain level of evidence to ensure that our client can demonstrate that these are from legitimate sources".

I guess the initial worry is that this might throw a spanner. I'll cross everything that it doesn't, after which I hope you'll be complaining about it. Sounds like they've let you down and caused a load of stress without having the decency to explain the real reason why.