How to safely transfer cash

whitejohn

The money from savings accounts, including NSI, only allow transfer to a nominated account so all must go via Santander. Will transfer 2 lots to be safe even though it will take longer.

Thanks all for your help.

theartfullodger

Give it all to me & I'll handle it: Trust me! send me your email, dob, bank account details and I'll proceed....


:eek:

caspar9

The last time I had to transfer a large amount to a solicitor I did it in steps of £10,000 and checked after each transaction that it had been received. It took a lot longer but made me feel safer. You just need to be organised to get the funds to the solicitor before completion.

t0rt0ise

Somebody transferred a large sum to me by calling their bank who did the transfer. There is a limit on the amount you can transfer by internet yourself but not by phone. I imagine other banks are the same.

da_rule

Do either of your accounts have cheque books? If so send your solicitor a cheque from one/both accounts. Solicitor client accounts usually clear cheques within a day or two.

davidmcn

da_rule wrote: »

Solicitor client accounts usually clear cheques within a day or two.

Not sure where you've got that idea from - it's the same clearance system for everyone.

bowlhead99

davidmcn wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure that a balance which you're holding in contemplation of sending it to your solicitor for a purchase is covered

Then in your case you would probably find some other solution involving multiple banks, or shrug and feel like there wasn't too much risk in the short time window so just go for it ...

However, in OP's case he is probably correct in thinking that he "read somewhere that the FSCS limit of £85000 could be exceeded for a short period" ; as that is factual, it can be exceeded - he has probably seen the press release or FAQ, or people discussing it, on his travels around the web. You can can have coverage for up to £1m deposited with a single institution for up to six months in certain circumstances which result in temporary high balances. One such circumstance is the purchase of a home to live in, where you collect money together in one institution to help you complete the purchase and it takes you over £85k.

If you were claiming you would have to provide evidence for your circumstances. If there is a house purchase lined up (i.e., you are not just thinking of perhaps doing one in the future, but there is actually a deal being done) that will not be a problem as you will have plenty of documentation to prove it - memorandum of sale from the estate agents, surveys, draft contracts etc etc.

So, assuming the amount required is sub- £1 million, you can put all your money in one place and then do one big CHAPS transfer to move it to the solicitor on one day, for one nominal fee from your bank for doing it. Or if you are happy to spend several days doing it you could use the 'faster payments' system to move the money into your solicitor's client money account over an extended period of time, which is usually free, but you are limited in how much you can move per day and it can take up to the end of the next business day to execute each one of the multiple transfers required. Functionally - whether the money is pooled in the solicitor's client money account at ABC bank or in your bank account with Santander - it is all still your money at all times, and is never the solicitor's money, which is the basis on which compensation can be made to you as an indvidual.

given that all these items appear to relate to sums received from other parties

or they can relate to sums to be sent to other parties having been received from multiple sources and those sources might be multiple accounts of your own.

Per the EU's deposit guarantee directive, a `deposit` means a credit balance which results from funds left in an account or from temporary situations deriving from normal banking transactions and which a credit institution is required to repay under the legal and contractual conditions applicable ; one of the situations which the UK has to cover for temporary short term situations under the EU's deposits guarantees directive is 'deposits resulting from real estate transactions relating to private residential properties'; the UK had some scope to set rules about the maximum size of temp balance and the max duration and settled on £1m and 6 months. The FSCS FAQ on temp high balances refers to 'Sums paid to the depositor in respect of real estate transactions (property purchase, sale proceeds, equity release) relating to a depositor's main or only residence'.

In OP's case it is not sale proceeds but property purchase, but both are mentioned separately on the FAQ (and the list is in any case a non-exhaustive list of examples). If OP moves his Tesco and Charter money to Santander as part of a chain of casflows for the purpose of buying his residential property, then from Santander's perspective there is £160k received by the depositor's bank account in connection with the purchase.

A short while later he moves it to the solicitor so that the solicitor is in cleared funds ahead of needing to pay it over at exchange deposit or completion. At that point there is again £160k received by the depoistor's bank account (albeit held by solicitor as nominee) and it might be with a different bank if the solicitor doesn't bank with Santander.

The £160k is joined by (say) £340k of mortgage funds drawn from a lender's facility making £500k in the depositor's share of the solicitor's client money account.

Then it gets paid over to the seller's solicitors.

But basically at the three stages (£160k, £160k and £500k) there should be coverage under temporary high balance rule. Some people might think that you only get it at the second stage or the third stage, or that you should apply an interpretation of the FAQ wording to mean it only ever applies to the £340k from the mortgage company because that's all that was 'received by the depositor' from a third party in connection with the purchase (despite the FAQ wording being non-exhaustive and a simplification). But the intention of the guarantee arrangement is to cover 'funds left in an account or from temporary situations deriving from normal banking transactions' so that people have enough faith in the banking system to use it for routine lifetime events such as property purchase, divorce payments, receipt of a payment from an insurance company or pension or employer etc without jumping through hoops in a convoluted manner to avoid breaching some threshold.

If you have £90k just sitting around, the regulators believe you should be able to manage your own affairs to not have all that money sitting in one basket. If you have been following the £90k threshold but then for a practical purpose relating to one of the named events, you temporarily go over the limit and Santander as your deposit-taking institution receives £160k into your account for a few days before paying it over to a solicitor to pay to the vendor ; or Santander provides the deposit-taking service via your solicitor client money account and you deposit your £160k from your various sources into that client money account before it's paid to the vendor ; and Santander goes bust - then you should be able to provide your evidence to FSCS that the money was received into the Santander account in connection with a property purchase which was due to transact shortly.

Santander or your conveyancer will not give you a reliable opinion on this as they do not operate the FSCS scheme and it is FSCS - to whom you would submit any claim - who could tell you how it works. Both Santander and your conveyancer will just give you the standard information they have to give their customers which is usually a version of the FSCS FAQ condensed into a few lines focused on warning you that you are generally at risk for amounts over £85k though for temporary high balances you 'may' be covered.

whitejohn

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Then in your case you would probably find some other solution involving multiple banks, or shrug and feel like there wasn't too much risk in the short time window so just go for it ...

However, in OP's case he is probably correct in thinking that he "read somewhere that the FSCS limit of £85000 could be exceeded for a short period" ; as that is factual, it can be exceeded - he has probably seen the press release or FAQ, or people discussing it, on his travels around the web. You can can have coverage for up to £1m deposited with a single institution for up to six months in certain circumstances which result in temporary high balances. One such circumstance is the purchase of a home to live in, where you collect money together in one institution to help you complete the purchase and it takes you over £85k.

If you were claiming you would have to provide evidence for your circumstances. If there is a house purchase lined up (i.e., you are not just thinking of perhaps doing one in the future, but there is actually a deal being done) that will not be a problem as you will have plenty of documentation to prove it - memorandum of sale from the estate agents, surveys, draft contracts etc etc.

So, assuming the amount required is sub- £1 million, you can put all your money in one place and then do one big CHAPS transfer to move it to the solicitor on one day, for one nominal fee from your bank for doing it. Or if you are happy to spend several days doing it you could use the 'faster payments' system to move the money into your solicitor's client money account over an extended period of time, which is usually free, but you are limited in how much you can move per day and it can take up to the end of the next business day to execute each one of the multiple transfers required. Functionally - whether the money is pooled in the solicitor's client money account at ABC bank or in your bank account with Santander - it is all still your money at all times, and is never the solicitor's money, which is the basis on which compensation can be made to you as an indvidual.

or they can relate to sums to be sent to other parties having been received from multiple sources and those sources might be multiple accounts of your own.

Per the EU's deposit guarantee directove, a !!!8216;deposit!!!8217; means a credit balance which results from funds left in an account or from temporary situations deriving from normal banking transactions and which a credit institution is required to repay under the legal and contractual conditions applicable ; one of the situations which the UK has to cover for temporary short term situations under the EU's deposits guarantees directive is 'deposits resulting from real estate transactions relating to private residential properties'; the UK had some scope to set rules about the maximum size of temp balance and the max duration and settled on £1m and 6 months. The FSCS FAQ on temp high balances refers to 'Sums paid to the depositor in respect of real estate transactions (property purchase, sale proceeds, equity release) relating to a depositor's main or only residence'.

In OP's case it is not sale proceeds but property purchase, but both are mentioned separately on the FAQ (and the list is in any case a non-exhaustive list of examples). If OP moves his Tesco and Charter money to Santander as part of a chain of casflows for the purpose of buying his residential property, then from Santander's perspective there is £160k received by the depositor's bank account in connection with the purchase.

A short while later he moves it to the solicitor so that the solicitor is in cleared funds ahead of needing to pay it over at exchange deposit or completion. At that point there is again £160k received by the depoistor's bank account (albeit held by solicitor as nominee) and it might be with a different bank if the solicitor doesn't bank with Santander.

The £160k is joined by (say) £340k of mortgage funds drawn from a lender's facility making £500k in the depositor's share of the solicitor's client money account.

Then it gets paid over to the seller's solicitors.

But basically at the three stages (£160k, £160k and £500k) there should be coverage under temporary high balance rule. Some people might think that you only get it at the second stage or the third stage, or that you should apply an interpretation of the FAQ wording to mean it only ever applies to the £340k from the mortgage company because that's all that was 'received by the depositor' from a third party in connection with the purchase (despite the FAQ wording being non-exhaustive and a simplification). But the intention of the guarantee arrangement is to cover 'funds left in an account or from temporary situations deriving from normal banking transactions' so that people have enough faith in the banking system to use it for routine lifetime events such as property purchase, divorce payments, receipt of a payment from an insurance company or pension or employer etc without jumping through hoops in a convoluted manner to avoid breaching some threshold.

If you have £90k just sitting around, the regulators believe you should be able to manage your own affairs to not have all that money sitting in one basket. If you have been following the £90k threshold but then for a practical purpose relating to one of the named events, you temporarily go over the limit and Santander as your deposit-taking institution receives £160k into your account for a few days before paying it over to a solicitor to pay to the vendor ; or Santander provides the deposit-taking service via your solicitor client money account and you deposit your £160k from your various sources into that client money account before it's paid to the vendor ; and Santander goes bust - then you should be able to provide your evidence to FSCS that the money was received into the Santander account in connection with a property purchase which was due to transact shortly.

Santander or your conveyancer will not give you a reliable opinion on this as they do not operate the FSCS scheme and it is FSCS - to whom you would submit any claim - who could tell you how it works. Both Santander and your conveyancer will just give you the standard information they have to give their customers which is usually a version of the FSCS FAQ condensed into a few lines focused on warning you that you are generally at risk for amounts over £85k though for temporary high balances you 'may' be covered.

Wow, thanks for that very comprehensive reply which is very convincing. I feel confident to go ahead on that basis and put the money in to one account and save a lot of time. I certainly could not have just Googled and found that detailed information. My bank seemed to be unsure about the situation too, as you mentioned.

I have letters from Solicitor and Estate Agent confirming that a purchase is in progress so going ahead with it.

:T

bowlhead99

whitejohn wrote: »

Wow, thanks for that very comprehensive reply which is very convincing. I feel confident to go ahead on that basis

The right way to "Go ahead on that basis" being to first check it out yourself with FSCS as I inferred in the last paragraph "it is FSCS... who could tell you how it works" rather than blindly believing someone who sounds convincing on the internet...

_CC_

I was in a similar position.

I put it all in my single Santander account. It was clear I was consolidating funds for a house purchase.

I did go into my local branch to arrange the transfer though (and had the manager come out and give me a look over...) and checked with the solicitor via phone that bank details they emailed were correct.

You'll be fine...