Gifted deposit from abroad

Teamocil

The assumption me and my mum have always had is that she would be able to give me money towards a house deposit. She lives in the US but has retained her UK citizenship and her UK bank account. She no longer has enough money in the UK to send me the money, so she'll need to do it from the US or pass it through the UK account.

Question 1: The plan is that she gifts me £12,000 and I use £7,000 of my money. I presume this means most banks will be fine with the gift aspect because I will have demonstrated that I can save up myself, albeit with my mum giving me more?

Question 2: What impact does her being abroad have? She is willing to show whatever is necessary to demonstrate that the money is legitimate.

Question 3: Should I ditch the broker recommended by the builder and find someone independent to handle this? He's telling me everything will be fine, but I'm just not convinced that he knows what he's dealing with here.

sal_III

1) The proportion doesn't matter, in my case I declared 90% of my deposit as gift from my parents (who live overseas) as it would have been damn near impossible to prove that the funds were actually mine and that I simply kept them in my parent's bank accounts in foreign currency. Neither the lender, nor my solicitor batted an eye.

2) You solicitor might get a bit peeved that if she can't provide a post office certified copy of her passport and proof of address, other than that shouldn't be an issue (wasn't for me)

3) Generally it's not recommended to use services like MB and solicitor provided by the builder as they have sorta conflict of interest, so might not recommend you whats best for you, but what's best for the builder. But that's not always the case, some of them are using decent MBs (including some forumites). Definitely check the terms of your agreement with the MB as it's not uncommon for them to charge extortionate fees.

Teamocil

Thanks for that. The broker's fees are fine and I'm happy with their mortgage recommendation but I dropped by their offices earlier to get my passport copied and I guess I've just got a few niggling doubts. The bloke is nice and comes across as credible, but he hasn't given any kind of heads-up on the ID requirements and anti-money laundering stuff, when surely the second I mentioned that much of my deposit was coming from abroad it should have triggered him to give an explanation of how it's going to work.

Teamocil

While you're here, how did you go about showing the money was legit? My mum seems to think she can go to a lawyer in the US who'll check it all over and send something to my UK solicitor, but I don't think that'd work? Surely my UK solicitor isn't just going to take someone else's word for it?

sal_III

The ID/AML requirements are mostly coming from the solicitor. As our glorious Government in their infinite wisdom decided to make them liable under AML regulations. It's not like the banks are not already liable. So it's normal for the MB not to grill you about that.

The solicitor was happy that the money came from EU bank, didn't care of how exactly my parents came to it. If you keep them in your UK bank for 6 months you don't even have to make it clear it's a gift and can pass it as savings which is the ridiculous bit. If the funds come from your mom UK bank account to your UK bank account I doubt they will care the actual source is a US bank account. But only your solicitor can answer this as everyone has different criteria.

All they have to do is to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" there is no money laundering. IMHO money coming from UK/EU/US bank compliant with AML to a UK bank compliant with AML should be plenty enough, but some are asking for the kitchen sink.