Estate agent asking to see proof of funds/deposit

Cattail

Hi everyone
I have made an offer on a house and estate agents are asking to see DIP plus proof of deposit.
I have both of these in place but just wanted to check if this is standard practice for estate agents?
Feel a bit uncomfortable showing them my savings/bank statements to be honest.
Thanks

glentoran99

they seller just wants to know you aren't wasting their time

Fiesto88

Yes, this is standard practise. It's so that they can confirm you are a credible buyer before taking the property off the market.

p00hsticks

Cattail wrote: »

Feel a bit uncomfortable showing them my savings/bank statements to be honest.
Thanks

Don;t forget to redact info such as bank account number, sort code etc.

theGrinch

get your sol to look at it and confirm to the EA

Lauralou79

We had a 50% deposit more or less so the estate agent did want proof of deposit due to it being a high amount. I wasn't particiularly happy with it being statements but can see the point to check we were proceedable. I blanked certain details out though.

Rambosmum

Yep, standard practice.

From a buyers perspective, if I don't have evidence (in the form of confirmation from the agent) that a potential buyer has funds and the borrowing potential then why should I accept your offer, take my house off the market, turn down other offers, stop people viewing it etc when you might not actually be able to buy it from me!

maccaz21

I understand the need for weeding out time wasters, but can anybody tell me if this is a legal obligation due to money laundering? It doesn't seem so by reading above.

I'm a cash buyer. I put in a bid via email and sent a jpeg snapshot of my online account. It shows my name, account number, the bank name and the amount i have bid.
EA called me and asked for my ID (which I'm OK with doing, I sent in passport) but also a pdf version of the POF. I asked why, she said money laundering, at which I replied this is the solicitors job.

The snapshot did not show the date, which she said she needed, so I therefore looked at my latest statement, which at the time shows significantly more money than my bid amount, and took another snapshot of the info at top of the statement. EA now has name, address, date of statement, more than enough cash, account number, sort code etc.

Because it was a jpeg snapshot they have rejected it. The state is must a pdf version of my full statement. I asked them, do you mean un-blanked, full statement which shows my full transaction history? To my amazement, I received the below,

"As an estate agents, we still have a legal obligation to abide by the Money Laundering Regulations. We need to fully clarify where the monies are coming from before we can get to the stages of the solicitors"

Surely this can't be right from an EA?

I've dealt with tens of EA's who have not asked for this, I'll be speaking to her management and potentially going to the property ombudsman for being overly intrusive and way outside of an EA remit.

Unless someone can tell me otherwise?

Thank you

Mac...

G_M

See this thread here

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5756572

maccaz21

Thanks for that. Yes, I'm fine with ID, but they want a full un-blanked pdf bank statement, all pages. This is way over the top in my opinion and non of their business.

bowlhead99

If their requirement is really to identify the buyer and his source of funds then I can't see that doing what you've done (given them a bank statement with maybe some info blanked off, that shows some amount of money that doesn't show a date) does what they need to evidence the source of funds. It could have been from 2003 for all they know.

Similarly when you then gave some other statement that showed a date but didn't actually show that you had any money in the account because you blanked the financial information out, for fear of 'revealing your hand', you can probably see their point that that doctored photo of a bank statement doesn't really help.

Two obvious things you could do (assuming say the offer is for £200k and your account has £300k in it)
1) move all except £205k out of the account. Run a bank statement over a custom date range to just show that remaining balance and say, voila, here is the £200k plus my £5k of other savings I'm not going to spend on your property because I have other things going on in my life.

2) simply show them your current bank account total (say £300k when you are only offering £200k) and say the fact that you have more money than you need to buy the house at its fair value of £200k does not mean the fair value of the house is any more than £200k; you will be using the 'spare' £100k for a whole list of things you want or need to do : save for retirement ; start a business ; go on holiday; buy a car; buy another property. Having access to funds does not change the value of the property. If they don't want to take your fair offer, they can take someone else's, who offers more (but may need mortgage funds or a property sale to raise the money)

I think the 'none of your business' approach is not really a reasonable tactic, *if* their regulations (which may well be new since you last bought a property) tell them that they should ID and establish source of funds for property purchase transactions - it's precisely"their business" If you won't give them a proper document to prove you currently have the funds in your UK bank account and a verbal explanation of how you came by those funds, then you are making the transaction more difficult than it has to be.

However, perhaps in the face of a non cooperative potential buyer, the EA would have some sort of eventual fall back plan, in which they entertain the idea of your solicitor confirming the details to them (as used to be ok on the old days) assuming you're not actually doing your conveyancing yourself.