Buying a house..money from abroad.

Tiggy777

Hi all.
Hope you are well.
My daughter and son in law are in the process of buying their first house together.  The met at University and finished studying a couple of years ago and have rented together or the past 2 years.
My son in laws family live abroad and his father has offered to contribute (a generous sum, think in the tens of thosands ) towards the house purchase l presume by gifting my son in law the money.
I was thinking would there be any 'issue' doing this in terms of taxation.rules, regulations like money laundering which we need to manage or am l over thinking this.
Would appreciate and comments or advice. 
Thank you very much for your help and time taken to read this.
Regards
T

Tiggy777

Hi all.
Hope you are well.
My daughter and son in law are in the process of buying their first house together.  The met at University and finished studying a couple of years ago and have rented together or the past 2 years.
My son in laws family live abroad and his father has offered to contribute (a generous sum, think in the tens of thosands ) towards the house purchase l presume by gifting my son in law the money.
I was thinking would there be any 'issue' doing this in terms of rules, regulations like money laundering which we need to manage or am l over thinking this.
Would appreciate and comments or advice. 
Thank you very much for your help and time taken to read this.
Regards
T

Keep_pedalling

The same rules apply as they do if you were making a gift, the conveyancing solicitor will need proof of funds from your SIL’s father so he needs to be prepared to provide the info requested.

This is in the wrong forum, I have asked for it to be moved. 

artyboy

It's certainly going to make the 'source of funds' checks more onerous for them - money from abroad is always seen as potentially suspicious and a route for money laundering.

 Ultimately the father is going to have to be prepared for some potentially detailed questions and requests for information around where this money originated, so if he is a private person that doesn't like sharing details of his financial history, then you could end up with a roadblock.

its also going to depend on the country itself. France, Germany, Canada etc will generally be seen as 'lower risk' because they are countries with similar controls to us around preventing financial crime. If however the money is coming from somewhere like China or Pakistan - some solicitors just won't want to touch it with a barge pole...

(I was, apparently, the preferred purchaser of the flat I'm buying right now, because both of the other people offering would have been funding it with money coming from China...)