FTB - shortfall when proving deposit funds to solicitor

Zuzi

Good morning,

I am at the start of a process of buying my first own property (leasehold flat, London, offer accepted, mortgage applied for).

My deposit will be 120,000. Own funds only, I am trying to avoid the additional layer of complexity of accepting gifts from family for this purpose, although they will gladly help with extra £££ later on.

My two accounts (cash ISA with Trading 212 and instant saver with Atom) hold about 113K. I have just uploaded the statements and information into my solicitors' portal and was asked right away where the shortfall will be coming from.

Fees of 6K have been added to the flat price so with the shortfall on the deposit amount I guess they need to see evidence of additional 13,000?

I have a notice account with 10K maturing mid-Dec, will that be any good? Otherwise I could sell my ETFs (even though I was hoping not to have to do this)... I do have about 155K in total but not all of the money is easily and immediately available, and it is largely small amounts in many accounts.

Does anyone have any experience with this type of shortfall this early on?

Thanks in advance for any tips! :-)

Zuzi

user1977

You tell your solicitor the funds will be coming from the other account(s). You don't need to actually provide funds until exchange, which I'm guessing is some time away.

gwynlas

Just tell them what you have said here which you can evidence.

Albermarle

. I do have about 155K in total but not all of the money is easily and immediately available, and it is largely small amounts in many accounts.

Not directly relevant, but maybe this situation needs tidying up . Unusual to have a lot of small investment accounts, instead of one or two larger ones.

Zuzi

Albermarle said:

. I do have about 155K in total but not all of the money is easily and immediately available, and it is largely small amounts in many accounts.

Not directly relevant, but maybe this situation needs tidying up . Unusual to have a lot of small investment accounts, instead of one or two larger ones.

It's largely in various regular savers that will mature at some point in the next 3 months, but I see your point. Once I have a mortgage I will probably aim to streamline this a bit more 

Thank you too @gwynlas & @user1977 , I am not sure how flexible the portal is where I am expected to fill in my information but in the worst case I suppose I can just email the solicitor about the situation. Or I will sell the ETFs and just change my answer about "have I sold any shares?" accordingly... I don't want to run any risk and seem like an unreliable buyer!

MyRealNameToo

You just need to show you have accounts with a total more than the £120,000 you have promised. As long as the funds actually come from some combination of these accounts it will be fine. 

user1977

At this stage it's more just a sanity check that you're expecting to have enough money when the time comes, and there isn't a complication such as a third party providing part of the price.