Halifax and Overseas Gifted Deposit Letter

elak6

Hello,

I wanted to ask advice on how to proceed with our mortgage ?
We initially had a mortgage offer approved from Halifax and the valuation was completed with no issues. As part of the mortgage, we are getting a gifted deposit from my parents in Nigeria, Halifax requested that my dad fills in a gifted deposit form, provide a copy of his passport, and 6 months bank statement showing the gifted deposit in his account and reflecting that he transferred the payment to me from that account which we promptly provided. According to our MB, this was required to ratify the overseas gifted deposit. It is now almost a month later after we provided the additional information and we have heard zilch, every time I chase up with the MB he keeps telling me that he is following up daily but no progress. Our MB previously advised us to proceed with the conveyancing and all should be fine. We are now at a stage that the conveyance process has almost concluded and the pending action is the mortgage,
Considering how long the mortgage and ratification process has taken, we are even at a stage when we have been paid two months' worth of wages and hence saved up further and we don't even need the gifted deposit.
I don't know what my options are, my MB isn't helping and I am contemplating abandoning the offer with Halifax and re-applying with someone else sans overseas gifted deposit.
I would have thought that the MB would have some form of business development contact in Halifax that he could contact for an update.
Looking at the average mortgage offer timeline inc. underwriting. it seems that we are on the extreme end of the timeline and with no end in sight, I would please appreciate any insight or advice on how to proceed?

Thrugelmir

Normally the solicitor performs the gifted deposit checks. 

Windofchange

As above, it isn't the bank that is doing the checks, it is the solicitor acting on the bank's behalf who is doing them. This quite often will be the same solicitor that you are going through to represent yourself as well. This is why not all solicitors have access to all banks, and you might get told that they don't work with acme bank. Who is doing your legal stuff? Is it the conveyancer? Who is acting for the bank? Is it not the same person? 

MaryNB

Thrugelmir said:

Normally the solicitor performs the gifted deposit checks. 

This is what I'm experiencing.
I applied for a mortgage with Halifax. I asked if they needed a gifted deposit letter but said they didn't. Mortgage offer received a month ago.

My conveyancing solicitor is now asking my parents (in Ireland) for ID and financial documents. 

elak6

Thrugelmir said:

Normally the solicitor performs the gifted deposit checks. 

That's what I thoufght as well but the MB advised that it was the bank that requested the checks. Halifax explicitly stated that they need to sign off on the overseas gifted deposit and this was about two weeks ago. 
The conveyancer then reached out to me later last week to request the same information so that they could perform their own anti-money laundering checks. 
So basically I now have two entities conducting more or less the same checks which just seems odd and a tad excessive 

MaryNB

elak6 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Normally the solicitor performs the gifted deposit checks. 

That's what I thoufght as well but the MB advised that it was the bank that requested the checks. Halifax explicitly stated that they need to sign off on the overseas gifted deposit and this was about two weeks ago. 
The conveyancer then reached out to me later last week to request the same information so that they could perform their own anti-money laundering checks. 
So basically I now have two entities conducting more or less the same checks which just seems odd and a tad excessive 

Is your conveyancing solicitor on Halifax's panel? I was advised by them to ensure mine was so the conveyancing solicitor can work on their behalf as well as mine. I'm assuming based on the above they're not and so Halifax have to get their solicitors to do the work separately.

Thrugelmir

elak6 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Normally the solicitor performs the gifted deposit checks. 

That's what I thoufght as well but the MB advised that it was the bank that requested the checks. Halifax explicitly stated that they need to sign off on the overseas gifted deposit and this was about two weeks ago. 
The conveyancer then reached out to me later last week to request the same information so that they could perform their own anti-money laundering checks. 
So basically I now have two entities conducting more or less the same checks which just seems odd and a tad excessive 

The underwriter may have simply wanted to perform a cursory check prior to issuing the mortgage offer. The lender will perform whatever checks it considers necessary before advancing thousands of pounds.