Proof of funds from gift

Dingle81

Bit confused what the process is, basically my dad may sell some gold coins he has to help me with house deposit, I was told he would have to complete these forms and supply my solicitor access to his bank accounts, seems odd, bank statements won’t show anything, they will just show +£20k once he has sold them. 

Anyone been through this process? Anything I see doesn’t seem to relate to money coming in from selling assets

youth_leader

Your Dad will receive a sales receipt from the buyer, and have his bank statement showing the funds received.  I expect the solicitor will want to see both, and then prepare the Declaration of Gift for your Dad to sign.    

km1500

the last experience I had with this was that the solicitor needed to see the bank account that the funds sent to you came from i.e your dad's bank account to prove where the money you received came from

they were not interested in how your dad acquired the money into his account

eddddy

Your solicitor will want to be sure that you and your dad aren't trying to launder 'dirty' money.

For example, the solicitor will want to be sure that your dad didn't steal that £20k from somewhere, or get it from drug dealing, etc.

So I suspect that the solicitor will want to see some documentary evidence that the £20k came from selling gold coins.

The solicitor might even want to see some evidence that the coins rightfully belonged to your dad - as opposed to having been stolen by your dad!  It's up to the solicitor to decide how much 'digging' they need to do.

 

HampshireH

km1500 said:

the last experience I had with this was that the solicitor needed to see the bank account that the funds sent to you came from i.e your dad's bank account to prove where the money you received came from

they were not interested in how your dad acquired the money into his account

My experience was that proof was needed of it in the gifters account and they also had to prove where it came from and when.

Jonboy_1984

Our solicitor said the best proof was a chain of evidence from a sales of assets/inheritance or regular savings, the gifters bank statement, ID, and our own statement showing the transfer.

He also commented that if it was drips and drabs of cash from car boot sales or similar we would be out of luck…


The other thing to bear in mind is there is deliberately no exact guidance on what any specific solicitor may require, as it would simply become a checklist for the very fraud they are trying to weed out…frustrating as it is…

molenpad

I had a similar issue, my dad gifted me £3k to help out with the deposit and fees for our purchase. We didn't really need it but he really wanted to give it to us a wedding present and to help with our house move. We declared it with the lender and the solicitor. 

Lender wanted a signed declaration letter that he had no interest in the property (they prepared a template for him to sign) and the solicitor wanted his ID and also to see bank statement to show accrual of money's.

The statement showed he had a large balance accrued over a long time of saving and showed the £3k bank transfer to us. As far as I know they did a money laundering check, and everything was above board and was ok. I am glad we declared it. I wouldn't worry. Like other posters have said he should keep the receipt for any sales that led to the accrual of money's and be prepared to show ID and a statement showing money in / money out. 

user1977

You'll need to ask your solicitor exactly what they think they'll need, there are no standard rules. As alluded to above, the main problem might be proving that the gold coins belonged to your father - does he have evidence of him acquiring them?

chanz4

Proof of sale is enough

user1977

chanz4 said:

Proof of sale is enough

I wouldn't be so sure that it is - "the funds came from some gold coins" isn't really any better than "the funds came from a carrier bag full of used tenners". But it partly depends on the timescales - if the sale proceeds have been sitting in dad's (or the OP's) bank account for months before they go to the solicitors, they may well not look back far enough for it to be an issue.

theartfullodger

user1977 said:

chanz4 said:

Proof of sale is enough

I wouldn't be so sure that it is - "the funds came from some gold coins" isn't really any better than "the funds came from a carrier bag full of used tenners"....

Indeed: Mind you that "coronation chicken" Charlie famously received millions in cash in carrier bags - see ...

https://news.sky.com/story/prince-charles-accepting-bags-of-cash-for-his-charity-would-not-happen-again-12642619