Conveyancer asks for more than 3000 £ in certified translations

staicontento

Hello everyone!
I am trying to buy a house. I though that the difficult part was to save the money, now I'm realising that it's to deal with a conveyancer...
All the process went through fine, when, just one week before the exchange the conveyancer tells that my money is suspicious according to money laundering. The only unusual things are 3 transfers from my Italian bank account to my UK account (same account holder) done via Transferwise. Nothing more. No blacklisted country or strange movements.

As requested, I provided more than 1 year of Italian bank statements and Italian payslips from my previous job. The problem is that they want all these documents to be translated (certified). The cost is about 30 £/page, that is more than 3000 £!
All of this, without any guarantee: the seller may change his mind or the solicitor may ask for more documents... I feel that they are messing up only because I'm Italian. Should I give up?

Thanks.

staicontento

though = thought

davidmcn

That's absurd. I'd query whether translation is needed at all - I doubt there's much (if anything) in the bank statements which actually need to be translated. They don't need to know the detail of every single transaction for over a year.

AdrianC

staicontento said:

As requested, I provided more than 1 year of Italian bank statements and Italian payslips from my previous job. The problem is that they want all these documents to be translated (certified).

That's hardly unreasonable, is it...?

Remember, it's not the solicitor being awkward. UK law requires him to satisfy himself that the funds are of legitimate origin - and that legislation is of EU origin.

I'm sure you're well aware of the reputation of certain regions of Italy when it comes to business ethics and funding irregularities... (And, yes, I mean "reputation" - I make no comment about the validity of that reputation, either currently or historically)

[Deleted User]

staicontento said:

Hello everyone!
I am trying to buy a house. I though that the difficult part was to save the money, now I'm realising that it's to deal with a conveyancer...
All the process went through fine, when, just one week before the exchange the conveyancer tells that my money is suspicious according to money laundering. The only unusual things are 3 transfers from my Italian bank account to my UK account (same account holder) done via Transferwise. Nothing more. No blacklisted country or strange movements.

As requested, I provided more than 1 year of Italian bank statements and Italian payslips from my previous job. The problem is that they want all these documents to be translated (certified). The cost is about 30 £/page, that is more than 3000 £!
All of this, without any guarantee: the seller may change his mind or the solicitor may ask for more documents... I feel that they are messing up only because I'm Italian. Should I give up?

Thanks.

Explore with the translator if it is possible for you to do the bulk of the work to set out the bank statements in the same format but translated. This could essentially lead them to do very little other than to take ownership of the transalated documents, check and certify them. So long as they can stand over the finished translation and take responsibility for it. The bulk of their costs will be to replicate the documentation in payslip and bank statement format.

princeofpounds

Sorry to hear you've been caught in this situation. Unfortunately the way money laundering laws are set up, there isn't really any clear guidance on what counts as 'clean' and the penalties for professional services that facilitate laundering can be huge. This has led to an overly risk-averse treatment in cases such as yours - foreign transactions, even from the EU, will always cause a flag. As AdrianC suggests, this was an EU requirement, but it wouldn't surprise me if we implemented it to the strict letter when others don't.

I can't think of an easy solution, but here are some suggestions:

- Who provided this quote? You may be able to shop around for a similar service - ask the lawyer what qualifications the person needs to have to provide a certified translation. You may find notaries and solicitors who will do it cheaper, perhaps a single price for the package. Also ask if a summary would be acceptable for some of the information - translating identical payslip forms seems rather pointless given the numbers are the same.

- Change conveyancer and get a bilingual lawyer who can actually understand the documents without the need for official translation. I know there's a handful of these floating around in London, but what of their cost and conveyancing expertise I don't know.

steampowered

Op, point out to your conveyancer that it will cost more than £3000 to have a full translation done. Ask them what they actually need.

They probably just need evidence of the main in-flows (e.g., your salary). So perhaps a translation of just those entries should suffice. If the statement shows the name of your employer paying your salary you should be able to simply point that out to them I doubt a translation is even needed.

davidmcn

steampowered said:

They probably just need evidence of the main in-flows (e.g., your salary). So perhaps a translation of just those entries should suffice. If the statement shows the name of your employer paying your salary you should be able to simply point that out to them I doubt a translation is even needed.

Indeed, all they need to check is that the account is in the name of the OP, the money going in is from the source they've verified i.e. the employers, and the withdrawals match the incoming money to the UK account. You don't need a translator to convert Italian numbers into English numbers, or to tell you that all the statements are from the same account.

staicontento

Thank you all.

AdrianC said:

I'm sure you're well aware of the reputation of certain regions of Italy when it comes to business ethics and funding irregularities... (And, yes, I mean "reputation" - I make no comment about the validity of that reputation, either currently or historically)

Thanks AdrianC but I know the money laundering regulations. I disagree with you, because the alert is always based on tangible facts, not on your opinions. Ironically, the Italian account is Deutsche Bank.

As @steampowered and @davidmcn pointed out, all the relevant text won't be translated, e.g. the name of my employer remains the same... You are reasonable person, my conveyancer is not.

EU is not blacklisted, transactions can be understood even if in euro and translation is not required by any law.
I've already pointed out the absurd sum of money requested. She is really dumb...

It would be great if any of you could come up with some law/regulation that could help a (still) EU citizen to get his rights.

I will keep you updated.

AdrianC

princeofpounds said:

As AdrianC suggests, this was an EU requirement, but it wouldn't surprise me if we implemented it to the strict letter when others don't.

Not this guff again...

There is no "implement to the strict letter". It's either implemented or it isn't. And it won't go away with Brexit, unless the UK really wants to become an utter international pariah state in the financial industry, a centre for global money laundering...

And, anyway, how other countries implement it is irrelevant here. The OP is wanting to produce foreign-language documents to satisfy a UK lawyer's legal requirement to follow UK law on a UK transaction... No, there is no reasonable expectation that all UK lawyers should be able to understand the nuances of Italian-language documentation. Or any of the other 22 other non-English EU official languages... Or any of the hundreds of non-EU ones... So, yes, requiring an officially certified translation is perfectly reasonable, and not in any way discriminatory.

As for the actual legislation...

EU directive 2015/849
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32015L0849&from=EN

UK implementation
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudr/2015/849/contents

staicontento said:

Thank you all.

AdrianC said:

I'm sure you're well aware of the reputation of certain regions of Italy when it comes to business ethics and funding irregularities... (And, yes, I mean "reputation" - I make no comment about the validity of that reputation, either currently or historically)

Thanks AdrianC but I know the money laundering regulations. I disagree with you, because the alert is always based on tangible facts, not on your opinions. Ironically, the Italian account is Deutsche Bank.

As @steampowered and @davidmcn pointed out, all the relevant text won't be translated, e.g. the name of my employer remains the same... You are reasonable person, my conveyancer is not.

EU is not blacklisted, transactions can be understood even if in euro and translation is not required by any law.
I've already pointed out the absurd sum of money requested. She is really dumb...

It would be great if any of you could come up with some law/regulation that could help a (still) EU citizen to get his rights.

I will keep you updated.

You're missing my point... The legislation requires the solicitor to satisfy themselves.

There is no definition of how that has to be done. If you think your solicitor is being over the top, then either negotiate with them as to how to meet their requirements in a less onerous way, or use a different solicitor who is happy to go with less onerous requirements. But you cannot simply say to them "This is too expensive or too much like hard work", because it is ultimately their decision on what satisfies them.

They have legal obligations, which apply to everybody.
You have rights. They aren't being breached. If you think a UK national would be treated differently over the requirement to translate foreign-language paperwork, I suggest you're wrong...

staicontento

Also, please note that all the money is already in UK, in an UK bank that follows UK money laundering regulations. If there was a suspicious transfer, it would have been reported.