proof of funds - long term savings / switched banks etc

unkle

You started off by saying you could get statements showing it being there for the last few years, that is likely to be enough for any solicitor. Like you've i've an amount of cash in various savings thats have moved around from various banks, NS&I, ISA's and the like, never been an issue showing no more than a year or so's statement.

Of course if deposits into those accounts are recent then you'd need to show source of those deposits.

davidmcn

jnorth55 said:

davidmcn said:

jnorth55 said:

davidmcn said:

jnorth55 said:

davidmcn said:

jnorth55 said:

davidmcn said:

Practices will vary, but solicitors are only likely to be looking back 3 months or so.

thanks for the reply but i'm not sure about this as proving 'source of funds' obviously would go back to when the money was acquired, if I understand the process correctly?

It's not literally proving the source of funds, otherwise you'd be going back to whenever money was invented! You have to draw the line somewhere - all they are wanting to do is eliminate reasonable suspicion that you've recently been "gifted" or are "looking after" somebody else's money, and if it's been lying in your account for long enough then it will be assumed that it is really is your money.

again, thanks for the reply but all the research i've done shows that if payment is in cash, or partly, above what would be an average deposit for example, then proof of source of funding is part of the legislation. I guess if its a small-ish amount then that might show up or appear to simply in regular ins & outs of a current account or savings account for example, but what i'm getting at here is that if proof of source of the amount is requested how does one go about that when the amount, or most of it, has been in different accounts for decades?

I've told you the answer, and I do this for a living. If you want to know exactly what a particular solicitor's policy is, you'd need to ask them - they will all differ to some extent. But it would be absurd to expect anybody to produce 20 years of bank statements.

apologies. obviously I have no idea what you do for a living as this is a public forum. You perhaps know this forum well also & if so you can find any number of posts where buyers have been asked to prove source of income & have had problems doing so. What i've been unable to find is any answer as to how anyone has done that when they've had the funds for decades & the original 'source' transactions can't be easily traced, for example when a bank is no longer trading. 

Like I said, there is simply no need to go back decades. Nobody will be expecting you to do so. If you've read something which suggests otherwise, can you point us towards it?

Tracing the "source" is only relevant if it's a recent deposit into your account - where for example somebody has been gifted money by a relative, there would then be a need to trace the funds through their accounts. But there's still going to be a cut-off date of, say, 3 or 6 months back from now, no matter what path you take to get there.

even if you search this forum using the term 'proof of funds', you can find posts about people being asked for statements going back 2, 5, 10 or even 20 years for example. 
As I mentioned this has become a bit of a block for me so i've spent some time researching the legislation & the guidance from the professional organisations & whilst its somewhat vague in certain sections, it does seem to suggest that the original source of funding for any cash payment is required. There's no mention of any length or time the solicitor can go back. I think the bigger point here though is that without specific rules around what & how solicitors can request proof of source of funding it means its really hard to know what the process will be or to try to prepare in advance, & as I said, impossible to get old statements from banks that aren't trading now.  

I would worry about it if and when anybody asks you to perform the impossible.

If there really are any solicitors demanding decades' worth of bank statements, I can't see how they would stay in business. Most people don't have records going back that far, even if they've stayed with the same bank. And it would come unstuck as soon as you reach any employment where you were paid in cash, or a gift from a long-deceased relative, or any other odd transaction which can't be verified for other reasons. And even if the statements exist, the exercise would take more work than it's worth. Money-laundering typically involves a fast turnaround of funds, not playing some bizarrely long game where the funds sit in an account for years on end.

As I said, if you want reassurance about what your solicitor will want, ask them. I can't see you've got anything to worry about.

Heres_the_deal

I've just been through this with one solicitor. They went back five years.

I posted the same questions when I started my journey and was told 3-6 months was more than enough.

My experience was completely different. My savings had been moved across many banks over the years, some of which required three months to gather all my statements together. Look at one of my recent posts about the issue I had with premium bond statements !

Perhaps I had an awkward solicitor? I fear not. Due to delays in our conveyancing we had to instruct another solicitor, this time I asked upfront when requesting a quote: what do they require in the way of source of funds (not proof of funds), and was told a year to two years of evidence by at least five of the law firms we approached. My current (not for long) solicitor went back four years.

My finances are not that complicated, but do involve multiple accounts, six of which are historic and now closed.

Gather your statements together as best you can, I was more concerned over delays in obtaining the evidence leading to the collapse of the sale. One solicitor decided to drag out the source of funds check towards the end, and then started requesting information that would have taken us months to obtain.

The solicitors have to protect themselfs and their firm, so work with them not against them. I found the more we tried to help, the more they helped us.

Flugelhorn

It is obviously all very variable - I have recently bought a house for cash, solicitor never asked where the money came from - she knew that I sold a house under probate about 2 years before for about 75% of the amount, probably knows I a  got sizeable lump sum in pension - but never actually asked the question. 

jnorth55

Heres_the_deal said:

I've just been through this with one solicitor. They went back five years.

I posted the same questions when I started my journey and was told 3-6 months was more than enough.

My experience was completely different. My savings had been moved across many banks over the years, some of which required three months to gather all my statements together. Look at one of my recent posts about the issue I had with premium bond statements !

Perhaps I had an awkward solicitor? I fear not. Due to delays in our conveyancing we had to instruct another solicitor, this time I asked upfront when requesting a quote: what do they require in the way of source of funds (not proof of funds), and was told a year to two years of evidence by at least five of the law firms we approached. My current (not for long) solicitor went back four years.

My finances are not that complicated, but do involve multiple accounts, six of which are historic and now closed.

Gather your statements together as best you can, I was more concerned over delays in obtaining the evidence leading to the collapse of the sale. One solicitor decided to drag out the source of funds check towards the end, and then started requesting information that would have taken us months to obtain.

The solicitors have to protect themselfs and their firm, so work with them not against them. I found the more we tried to help, the more they helped us.

thanks. yes, I spotted that post about premium bonds. 
I also have savings moving between various accounts that i've had for years. I'm not retired but my self employment has been to keep my in spending money, pay bills etc so all of my savings are from ages ago, hence why returns wouldn't really be useful. 
In trying to research all of this (& as I say, for various reasons I won't go into here) the differences in how solicitors approach it has led to anxiety which I know is a block now. 

What i'm surprised at is that there's no online advice or resources advising folks who might, for example, by paying a lot or all of the cost in cash & who have had those savings for decades. All of the advice points to 'recent transactions' or 'recent savings'.

Heres_the_deal

I did find some good examples online, but none of the advice I was given matched my experience. What @davidmcn said in his post is a good guide to the process in 'general'.

csgohan4

jnorth55 said:

Heres_the_deal said:

I've just been through this with one solicitor. They went back five years.

I posted the same questions when I started my journey and was told 3-6 months was more than enough.

My experience was completely different. My savings had been moved across many banks over the years, some of which required three months to gather all my statements together. Look at one of my recent posts about the issue I had with premium bond statements !

Perhaps I had an awkward solicitor? I fear not. Due to delays in our conveyancing we had to instruct another solicitor, this time I asked upfront when requesting a quote: what do they require in the way of source of funds (not proof of funds), and was told a year to two years of evidence by at least five of the law firms we approached. My current (not for long) solicitor went back four years.

My finances are not that complicated, but do involve multiple accounts, six of which are historic and now closed.

Gather your statements together as best you can, I was more concerned over delays in obtaining the evidence leading to the collapse of the sale. One solicitor decided to drag out the source of funds check towards the end, and then started requesting information that would have taken us months to obtain.

The solicitors have to protect themselfs and their firm, so work with them not against them. I found the more we tried to help, the more they helped us.

thanks. yes, I spotted that post about premium bonds. 
I also have savings moving between various accounts that i've had for years. I'm not retired but my self employment has been to keep my in spending money, pay bills etc so all of my savings are from ages ago, hence why returns wouldn't really be useful. 
In trying to research all of this (& as I say, for various reasons I won't go into here) the differences in how solicitors approach it has led to anxiety which I know is a block now. 

What i'm surprised at is that there's no online advice or resources advising folks who might, for example, by paying a lot or all of the cost in cash & who have had those savings for decades. All of the advice points to 'recent transactions' or 'recent savings'.

The main question you should ask is to your solicitor, as what strangers on the internet give may not be what your solicitor require. Although unlikely they will ask for decades worth of evidence. Usually only last 3 months if no red flags. 

No reassurance can be given on here, apart from what you get from your solicitors, although if you have nothing to hide and have no red flags you shouldn't worry too much.