Completion balance far higher than expected

user1977

biscan25 said:

user1977 said:

biscan25 said:

thebratprince said:

Yeah, we've checked the statement and it works out, unfortunately. We miscalculated our net sale proceeds somehow, leading to the unexpected shortfall.

We can cobble together 18k ish between me and my husband. I might ask our solicitor whether it would be acceptable to make up the last few grand with family's money. Surely if they deposit 5k into my account and we pay that on completion, it is okay? First time buying and selling at the same time, unsure of the processes.

There's no way they would find out. As far as they are concerned, you've passed AML checks and have enough clean funds to proceed with the sale.

I'm not sure how you can come to that view. Solicitors ought to be checking where the final payment has actually come from.

Do they do this? How? I paid mine as a series of 15 faster payments from 3 accounts over 5 days.

By getting the paper trail from you for the funds all the way up to the transfer to their account. If that shows a big deposit into your account from persons unknown, then I would expect further questions.

housebuyer143

thebratprince said:

Yeah, we've checked the statement and it works out, unfortunately. We miscalculated our net sale proceeds somehow, leading to the unexpected shortfall.

We can cobble together 18k ish between me and my husband. I might ask our solicitor whether it would be acceptable to make up the last few grand with family's money. Surely if they deposit 5k into my account and we pay that on completion, it is okay? First time buying and selling at the same time, unsure of the processes.

If it's only £5 you are better off not telling them at all. You could have easily saved £5k since they did the AML checks. 

donutandbeer

I was told by my solicitor that all money paid to solicitor (purchase price + solicitor fee) need to pass AML check by them. I suppose if it’s a few £k they are unlikely to find out. But I also wouldn’t want to risk it. 

thebratprince

@housebuyer143 I'd hoped so, but wanting to be honest here and see how that goes, I'd hate to bet on it and for something to go wrong later down the line.

Mr.Generous

user1977 said:

biscan25 said:

user1977 said:

biscan25 said:

thebratprince said:

Yeah, we've checked the statement and it works out, unfortunately. We miscalculated our net sale proceeds somehow, leading to the unexpected shortfall.

We can cobble together 18k ish between me and my husband. I might ask our solicitor whether it would be acceptable to make up the last few grand with family's money. Surely if they deposit 5k into my account and we pay that on completion, it is okay? First time buying and selling at the same time, unsure of the processes.

There's no way they would find out. As far as they are concerned, you've passed AML checks and have enough clean funds to proceed with the sale.

I'm not sure how you can come to that view. Solicitors ought to be checking where the final payment has actually come from.

Do they do this? How? I paid mine as a series of 15 faster payments from 3 accounts over 5 days.

By getting the paper trail from you for the funds all the way up to the transfer to their account. If that shows a big deposit into your account from persons unknown, then I would expect further questions.

We use a property lawer specialist and for source of funds just put "Wages and savings" or "Proceeds of property sale" on the form. Never had to prove anything. When I asked about it he said in 40+ years of conveyancing he has never had any follow quieries regarding money laundering so he doesn't pay it much atttention. I can't imagine many asking for bank statements ect to prove where money comes from every time a client settles a bill. The kind of people who love using rules and regulations to control others will do everything they can, most will just cover themselves as they see fit.

user1977

Mr.Generous said:

user1977 said:

biscan25 said:

user1977 said:

biscan25 said:

thebratprince said:

Yeah, we've checked the statement and it works out, unfortunately. We miscalculated our net sale proceeds somehow, leading to the unexpected shortfall.

We can cobble together 18k ish between me and my husband. I might ask our solicitor whether it would be acceptable to make up the last few grand with family's money. Surely if they deposit 5k into my account and we pay that on completion, it is okay? First time buying and selling at the same time, unsure of the processes.

There's no way they would find out. As far as they are concerned, you've passed AML checks and have enough clean funds to proceed with the sale.

I'm not sure how you can come to that view. Solicitors ought to be checking where the final payment has actually come from.

Do they do this? How? I paid mine as a series of 15 faster payments from 3 accounts over 5 days.

By getting the paper trail from you for the funds all the way up to the transfer to their account. If that shows a big deposit into your account from persons unknown, then I would expect further questions.

We use a property lawer specialist and for source of funds just put "Wages and savings" or "Proceeds of property sale" on the form. Never had to prove anything. When I asked about it he said in 40+ years of conveyancing he has never had any follow quieries regarding money laundering so he doesn't pay it much atttention. I can't imagine many asking for bank statements ect to prove where money comes from every time a client settles a bill.

As I said above, funds which are merely "settling a bill" aren't likely to be an issue, but funds going towards the purchase price are - both from an anti-money-laundering regulations point of view, and because mortgage lenders require the solicitors to verify that the whole of the equity has come from the borrowers' own funds (or permitted gifted deposits).

The risk which the regulated sectors have is not only actual incidents of money-laundering, but having to prove that they have taken the necessary steps to guard against it (and being fined if they slip up).

Obviously, some solicitors will be sloppier than others - but you may wish to consider what other shortcuts they might be taking on a similar basis...

thebratprince

Yep - spoke to solicitor and we need to declare it as a gift. They'll do that for us, which is fine. 

Things developed rather quickly. Our buyer has said out of the blue that their mortgage offer expires next Friday and they need to complete ASAP - it's the first anyone, including our solicitor, has heard of that. Everyone is scrambling to gets funds requested, and it's likely we'll exchange and complete within 48hrs of each other next week. Yikes. 

Thanks for your help everyone, helped me tackle what to do.

Sarah1Mitty2

thebratprince said:

Yeah, we've checked the statement and it works out, unfortunately. We miscalculated our net sale proceeds somehow, leading to the unexpected shortfall.

We can cobble together 18k ish between me and my husband. I might ask our solicitor whether it would be acceptable to make up the last few grand with family's money. Surely if they deposit 5k into my account and we pay that on completion, it is okay? First time buying and selling at the same time, unsure of the processes.

Really really terrible idea in these times of rising costs, the only sensible option is to lower your offer I think.

housebuyer143

Sarah1Mitty2 said:

thebratprince said:

Yeah, we've checked the statement and it works out, unfortunately. We miscalculated our net sale proceeds somehow, leading to the unexpected shortfall.

We can cobble together 18k ish between me and my husband. I might ask our solicitor whether it would be acceptable to make up the last few grand with family's money. Surely if they deposit 5k into my account and we pay that on completion, it is okay? First time buying and selling at the same time, unsure of the processes.

Really really terrible idea in these times of rising costs, the only sensible option is to lower your offer I think.

Yeah, derail the entire chain 5 days before proposed completion...

thebratprince

Exactly, the last thing we want to do is revise the offer, our sellers are extremely pushy and have made the whole chain panic at various points by applying pressure, I don't want to 'wake the beast' as it were.

We're having a look at all our finances to see if we can pull it together between us, declaring a gift is going to be another thing which slows it down especially if we have to complete by next Friday.