How to send completion monies

MrCarrot

I will hopefully be completing in the next couple of weeks.  I am anxious as to how to organise and send the completion monies, mainly because once exchanged it becomes time critical.

1. I have the money in half a dozen savings accounts and ISAs.  These funds need to be transfered to my nominated current account first.  I checked with the relevant banks and the timescale for this is between 2 to 48 hours for each account.

2. I then need to get the money from my current account to my solicitor's account.  There is a £50k daily payment limit unless you go into the branch.  Should I go into the branch and make a BACS payment, or would I be better with CHAPS or a banker's draft?

3. A few years ago I opened a new ISA and transfered the balance of my previous ISA to it.  The new ISA was with Virgin Money.  Virgin Money then froze my new ISA account whilst they performed "identity and money laundering checks".  It was like this for weeks until they finally gave me access to my money.

The reason I mention this is because my current account is not used very much and normally only has a balance of a few hundred pounds.  Suddenly it is going to be in receipt of hundreds of thousands of pounds.  I am worried if the bank freeze the funds I will be royally screwed.  On the plus side my current account is with a mainstream bank and I've had the account for over 20 years so I am hoping something like that doesn't happen.

TonyMMM

Allow for this to take a little time - I recently had to move some large sums of money  as part of distributing an estate and quite a few transactions got "held" by the bank and needed a chat with the fraud team to get released. .. start the process of moving the funds into your current account now.

Getting the money to the solicitor might be easiest by taking them a cheque for the whole amount ....depending on timescales. Ask them how they would like it and most importantly when they need it by.

A BACS payment should be OK ( but you will have to go into the branch to do it probably if over £50k)

youth_leader

Same as TonyMMM, I transferred my first £25K and the bank fraud team held onto it, I couldn't contact them for hours.  I'd phone your bank and let them know you are transferring funds for your purchase.

Flugelhorn

I have never had problems transferring - I transferred money into my current account from NS&I and then went into a branch to do the main transfer to the solicitor  - took ID etc 400K + went through fine

Just allow extra time to ensure it all happens OK

user1977

TonyMMM said:

Getting the money to the solicitor might be easiest by taking them a cheque for the whole amount ....depending on timescales. Ask them how they would like it and most importantly when they need it by.

Indeed, check what the solicitors want though. Some don't accept cheques. And if they do, you'll need to allow for clearance time (same goes for bankers' drafts - they may be guaranteed to clear, but they still need to go through the clearance system before the solicitors can use the money).

kungfu_navs

When i need to transfer money from my account to another. I always set up the payee first in the app and save it. i then send over £1-£5 and confirm its been received before sending the rest 

DullGreyGuy

I saved myself a trip to the bank just by transferring it over two days. Obviously discussed and agreed with the solicitor first so they understand whats going on. 

Ksw3

We both went into the branch to do CHAPs payments. None of the payments were held up even the one with HSBC (who seem to stop absolutely everything) went through fine. It was about £20 fee for CHAPs but it was with our solicitor by 9am on the Monday. 

1616six

Just make sure you send it from the account you listed on your source of funds form!

We’ve been round the houses this morning as our deposit is gifted from my partners father as early inheritance, he’s remortgaged to release the funds but couldn’t remember what account he’d filled in on the gifted deposit form so I had to then get him to phone my solicitor for them to confirm the account number he’d filled in! She said if the funds end up coming from a different account it then has to be a case of sending in statements etc for the money laundering checks to be done. Right faff!

MrCarrot

1616six said:

Just make sure you send it from the account you listed on your source of funds form!

We’ve been round the houses this morning as our deposit is gifted from my partners father as early inheritance, he’s remortgaged to release the funds but couldn’t remember what account he’d filled in on the gifted deposit form so I had to then get him to phone my solicitor for them to confirm the account number he’d filled in! She said if the funds end up coming from a different account it then has to be a case of sending in statements etc for the money laundering checks to be done. Right faff!

I'm not sure I listed this account as my source of funds, because it had no funds in at the time.  I listed all of my accounts where the funds resided at the start of the process!

However I paid the exchange deposit from this account and it wasn't queried.

JohnTheSkier

As my current account (Nationwide) had a £10k limit per transaction, I simply sent the money to my solicitor in £10k chunks with no issue, all confirmed as received the following day.