Bankers Draft Why?

russellsnr

Hi, hope this is in the correct place.
We are in the proccess of selling our house in Greece and the buyers are putting the money into or want to put the money into our UK A/C, The deposit was paid via a bank transfer but there bank in the UK are saying that they cannot pay the rest the same way, they have to have a bankers draft, just wonder why this should be as a bank transfer must be a safer way to go as no paper is involved as with a bankers draft both they and us will have to carry it on our person at some point and a bankers draft I beleive costs money? Many Thanks.

sal_III

Can't you use something like Transferwise to receive the payment and then move it from Transferwise to your "normal" UK bank account with no fuss?

https://transferwise.com/gb/request-money

Save on currency conversion and transaction fees as a bonus.

colsten

Banks have daily transfer limits, some of which quite low, like £10K. It is possible that the bank said they can either do CHAPS (has a charge) or a Banker's Draft (probably no charge), and you buyer has chosen the latter. It sounds a bit iffy, tbh, although a Banker's Draft should be safe, if it is genuine. It just takes clearing time, which a CHAPS transfer wouldn't. Do you have a Solicitor involved, and can they handle the money?

russellsnr

Hi, Thankyou for the replies.
We actually do no the people who are buying our house, we, that is both parties live in Greece but the problems trying to transfer monies out of Greece makes it a better option to just transfer from UK bank to UK bank, I just wondered why it could not be done via a normal bank transfer and if as colsten points out it is because the banks have a daily limit for bank transfers that would make sense. Thankyou.

born_again

So this is UK acc to UK acc & not any acc in Greece?

russellsnr

Yes it is UK 2 UK

colsten

russellsnr wrote: »

...... both parties live in Greece....

Do you have to get the BD mailed to Greece, and then mail it back to your bank in the UK? If so, I'd ask the buyers to sort out a CHAPS payment. In fact, I would ask them to do so in any case.

russellsnr

Thankyou, We will approach them to arrange the best option, the CHAPS option looks a good one.