FTB - Stressing about paying deposit to solicitor!

caprikid1

When I transferred my deposit, I think me and the GF did the usual £1 starter, then did it in £40K chunks, I think it was about 4 each over the space of a few nights via online banking, the solicitor confirmed each morning receipt of funds etc.
There is a risk of transaction fraud at the moment where fake e-mail accounts are created and people are mailed asking them to pay deposits into a different bank account, if you chose to pay the money into a different account through no fault of the solicitor or bank then it can be a very slow process to retrieve it , IF IT CAN BE RETRIEVED.
1. Good solicitors will tell you their account detaisl at outset and never change it.
2. If you are notified of an account change , ensure it is verified by post and by you calling them at the number you have on file for them.
3. Always do £1 first, always call not e-mail to get confirmation it has been received.

pinkteapot

Agree with everyone else - if you can do it over multiple days via online banking then do that - it's by far the least stressful method. 

We needed to transfer almost £400k to our solicitor and HSBC had a measly £20k or £25k daily limit, so we had to do it as one large payment. It was a very stressful half-hour phone call with their Large Payments Team to set up the payment, firstly because they had to ask us several security questions and would stop the call if we made a single mistake and we'd then have to go into branch, and secondly because even though we had the solicitor as a payee on our accounts, the guy on the phone still had to put in their details afresh on his form. I made him read the sort code and account number back to me about five times before I'd trust him.  

youth_leader

I asked for advice about this and have told my solicitor I will be transferring the smaller test amount first, phoning to check it's arrived, then  transferring the balance at £25K per day.  I'm starting early to ensure it's all there in plenty of time.

jsj25

Cheers guys - really helpful and really reassuring. Sounds like we're all in the same boat. 

Would be way too worried about making a mistake when giving the bank details over the phone so several online payments sound like a far less stressful way to go than doing a phone payment!!

parkingadvice1212

Don't know if this is any help but I will be transferring our deposit in one go from my Starling account. They can temporarily increase the faster payments limit to £250k if requested.

badger09

Your accumulated funds will be covered by FSCS Temp High Balance protection. If your solicitor accepts multiple payments, that's the easiest & cheapest method for you. Just allow plenty of time - mine needed cleared balance by the day before completion.

We exchanged yesterday, completion on Thursday so I sent over £370k balance yesterday afternoon by CHAPS from Nationwide, just missed cut off time so knew it wouldn't arrive until today but that would be fine. Nationwide have different process for CHAPS so I couldn't use saved payee details for Solicitor as I'd hoped. After triple checking all details, pressed submit & got error message 'Sorry we're having technical problems, please try later'.
Logged in again later, no sign of payment request, no pending payment, nothing, so went through it again. This time completely different onscreen message said 'Confirmation: Your CHAPS payment request has been sent for processing'. Big sigh of relief. 

05.25 & 05.26 this morning, I got emails to say Nationwide had sent secure message. Logged in & 2 messages, with different refs said CHAPS payment request would be processed.
Panic that they are going to try to make 2 payments leaving us VERY overdrawn!
Eventually managed to speak to a human being who said 1st request had indeed gone through despite the error message, but would have been picked up by their team.

Payment has now gone through - just the one so far    
You really couldn't make it up but its just one more thing to add to the long list of stresses when moving house

Good luck 

Scotbot

Badger09's experience is why personally I would go into the branch and do 1 chaps payment. It takes about 5 minutes and my bank has very good social distancing in place so it is no more risk than going to the supermarket, probably a lot less as the supermarket is considerably busier. Of couse that assumes you have a nearby branch.

AnotherJoe

Scotbot said:

Badger09's experience is why personally I would go into the branch and do 1 chaps payment. It takes about 5 minutes and my bank has very good social distancing in place so it is no more risk than going to the supermarket, probably a lot less as the supermarket is considerably busier. Of couse that assumes you have a nearby branch.

I could have done it in one go but that meant a branch visit which needed an appointment and also going into town. Didn't seem worth the hassle when I could do it from my armchair. I didn't check but also wouldnt have been surprised if there was a several week wait, or they pushed back asking "why come in when you can do it online?"

macman

jsj25 said:

macman said:

Your deposit is £155K and so (assuming a 10% deposit) you are buying a property worth about £1.55m?! As an FTB?
The normal required  deposit is 10% at exchange, with the balance due on completion. 

If only! My deposit is over 50% of the property price so a little cheaper than that thankfully. (But still by far the most expensive thing I'll ever have bought )

greatcrested said:

The £50K daily limit appears to apply to online payments.

Or for Premier customers:"The overall daily payment limit to other people in Online Banking is £100,000 for international and CHAPS payments."

https://www.barclays.co.uk/help/payments/payment-information/online-banking-limits/

"To make payments over these limits, you’ll need to visit a branch." (or Try telephone baking for larger amounts for unlimited Chaps.)

Yeah - thought it a bit odd that the CHAPS limit was only referenced for Premier customers but assumed it'd be the same for Personal customers (except for the lower £50k amount). But for sure, will give them a call just to be sure. Otherwise Faster Payments it most likely will be!

OK, but, assuming a purchase price of around £300K, you'll only need to have £30k of that in your conveyancer's client account before exchange. That's your 10% deposit. With the balance ready before completion.

It's unheard of to pay over 50% upon exchange,

davidmcn

macman said:

jsj25 said:

macman said:

Your deposit is £155K and so (assuming a 10% deposit) you are buying a property worth about £1.55m?! As an FTB?
The normal required  deposit is 10% at exchange, with the balance due on completion. 

If only! My deposit is over 50% of the property price so a little cheaper than that thankfully. (But still by far the most expensive thing I'll ever have bought )

greatcrested said:

The £50K daily limit appears to apply to online payments.

Or for Premier customers:"The overall daily payment limit to other people in Online Banking is £100,000 for international and CHAPS payments."

https://www.barclays.co.uk/help/payments/payment-information/online-banking-limits/

"To make payments over these limits, you’ll need to visit a branch." (or Try telephone baking for larger amounts for unlimited Chaps.)

Yeah - thought it a bit odd that the CHAPS limit was only referenced for Premier customers but assumed it'd be the same for Personal customers (except for the lower £50k amount). But for sure, will give them a call just to be sure. Otherwise Faster Payments it most likely will be!

OK, but, assuming a purchase price of around £300K, you'll only need to have £30k of that in your conveyancer's client account before exchange. That's your 10% deposit. With the balance ready before completion.

It's unheard of to pay over 50% upon exchange,

I suspect the OP means "deposit" as in the equity they are contributing to the price, rather than just the contractual deposit. And these days exchange and completion tend to be pretty close (if not actually simultaneous) so it amounts to much the same thing anyway in terms of getting the money to the solicitor.