About to complete - money laundering checks query

NovaBlack155

Hi,

A bit of a strange one - we exchanged recently and are due to complete in a few days time.

Our solicitor has now asked where the source of our deposit has come from, as expected - to comply with money laundering regulations.

We'd already transferred 3 months worth of bank statements at the start of the process to prove we had the funds, and show they had been in the account over that 3 month period - no issues raised at that point.

We mentioned at the time on a phone call to the office that we the total funds in the account *did* technically include a gift (9k from a parent about 5 months ago). HOWEVER, we would not need to make use of any of this gift money for our deposit (the total of the funds in the account accrued through savings over the past 5 years, more than cover the deposit, leaving a chunk left over, and the 10k gift).

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Starting to panic a little that it may cause issues!

Thanks

csgohan4

You can justify not giving, but if solicitor wants, you would give as they feedback to the lender regarding these mandatory checks, as you havenothing to hide let them know you don't intend to use the gift for the house buying.

dennishopper

OT: if using just a £2k gift towards a deposit, does any more, in terms of say paperwork, need to be pointed out to the solicitor, or is a mention suffice?

Thrugelmir

Be prepared to provide evidence of the source of the deposit. The larger the sum the further you may need to go back. Onus is on the solicitor to satisfy themselves before reporting back to the lender.

HampshireH

If your deposit is purely savings then show bank statements for last 3 6 month intervals showing an accumalation of funds.

To be honest ai think your solicitor missed something because you would expect any hurdles to have been jumped before exchange.

If you are using a gifted deposit then that will need to be evidenced, proven the source and signed off on a disclaimer

D_M_E

Write to them reiterating that the gift plays no part in funding the deposit, the funds for the deposit were accrued by yourselves via savings over the last 5 years, and include bank statements for the last 12 months to show this.

Point out that the payment of deposit funds will still leave the gift funds in the account - the last statement does show the total of deposit + gift, yes? - and ask what else do they require.

pinkteapot

It’s crazy that the solicitor didn’t do this before exchange. What if the checks reveal something that cause the mortgage offer to be withdrawn?! :eek:

I don’t think that’ll be the case here but that solicitor should be reviewing their processes.