Money from overseas. Problem to use that money?

aaryal

Hi all,

last year I sent some money to a relative because they were having problems with cash flow and covid was really creating problems for their income. they really needed the help. This relative lives overseas so I used websites like western union to transfer the money. 6-7 times and about 5k each time. 

now I want to buy a house and need to transfer the money back to my account. Will it be a problem for me using that money if the mortgage lender sees money coming from overseas? 

At what threshold/amount of money does it become a problem where they start to make a fuss about source of income?

PlumLuck

I was asked to declare the source of any single items on my bank statement that were over £3000 incoming. 

Slithery

aaryal said:

Will it be a problem for me using that money if the mortgage lender sees money coming from overseas?

Shouldn't be a problem as surely you can show the money going out in the first place and then being returned.

aaryal said:

At what threshold/amount of money does it become a problem where they start to make a fuss about source of income?

There isn't a threshold. Your solicitor will need to be satisfied with the source of all of your money.

aaryal

Yes my bank account will show an outgoing of the same amount to the money transfer company who then send it to my relative.

is just that in itself enough to satisfy the 40k or so that I’m bringing back to the uk?

user1977

Whatever you do, don't use Western Union or similar to transfer it back. Use a normal bank transfer - the solicitors will (probably) need to see a paper trail of whose account the money came from (and to see their ID).

MaryNB

A significant chunk of my deposit came from the Republic of Ireland, some was my own money (savings from before I emigrated), some from my parents who live there.
My solicitor was quite thorough but we got all the paperwork together and I no issues using it.

All the funds were transferred to my Irish current account and I used TransferWise to move it to my UK current account. I put together a page explaining the source of funds, with a summary table of the all transactions ,(inlcudings dates), referencing all the relevant bank statements which I sent to my solicitor. 

Veromartos

I just had my mortgage offer last week. I sold a property in Spain a couple of months ago and  transferred £38000 from my Spanish bank account to my UK bank account. (We are using it as part as our deposit) I was worried but they did not ask any questions. Obviously I was prepared and have all they paperwork from the sell just in case.

MaryNB

Veromartos said:

I just had my mortgage offer last week. I sold a property in Spain a couple of months ago and  transferred £38000 from my Spanish bank account to my UK bank account. (We are using it as part as our deposit) I was worried but they did not ask any questions. Obviously I was prepared and have all they paperwork from the sell just in case.

Your lender may not ask questions but since your solicitor will be acting for your lender as well they'll do the anti-money laundering checks. Has your solicitor not asked you for the information yet? My solicitor asked for proof of funds soon as I started the conveyancing process. My bank asked for nothing, it was all done through my solicitor.

eddddy

Just a warning - I was involved in a vaguely similar situation and it reached deadlock. The only way of resolving it was for the overseas person to come to the UK. (But perhaps it was because the solicitor had no previous experience of the problem.)

Is your relative able to come to the UK? Are they in a country where English is an official language? Can they get to a British Consulate?

The problem was:

• The UK solicitor required a certified copy of the overseas person's ID. The solicitor insisted that it must be certified in English, and the solicitor insisted that a specific wording must be used for the certification.

• The notaries in the overseas country would do certified copies (for a reasonable fee), but not surprisingly, they wouldn't do the certification in English - and they would only use their own form of wording.

• The certified copies could have had certified translations into English (for a very large fee) - but the wording would still have been incorrect

• Google suggested that copies could be certified in English at a British Consulate overseas - but the UK solicitor wouldn't give a 100% assurance that this was acceptable

• Ultimately, the overseas person came to the UK, and got a certified copy of their ID for £5 at a random solicitor's office

So, I'd suggest that you ask the solicitor at the outset how they deal with proving ID for people who are overseas. I'd be tempted to only deal with a solicitor who has done this before.

(And you can also ask what other AML checks they'll want to do on your relative - e.g. certified copies of bank statements etc. And check that your relative is happy to hand over copies of bank statements.)