Proof of Funds - old savings. Is PoF a system that Martin needs to look at.

user1977 · 28 October at 6:07PM

SiliconChip said:

jnorth55 said:

Herzlos said:

Elliott.T123 said:

Every house I have ever bought, every house my parents have bought, every house my in-laws have bought (using far bigger cash figures than you mentioned, one of the purchased was over £1m in cash) the "proof of source of funds" has been a simple case of, here is the bank account / accounts the money is in, it has been here for 12 months. That is all the proof that was required.

I'm convinced there must be some other issue at play we're just not catching. I don't think it was mentioned anywhere, but what country are you in? We're assuming England but it's possible you're somewhere with completely different rules and we're talking at cross purposes.

What country is your money in? What kind of savings account?

Seriously, doesn't it show the issue that you assume there must be something to do with me. It really isn't. The money is in the UK, in normal bank savings accounts, as I have already said in other replies. The issue is, the only issue, that when I have been asked for 'proof of source of funds' I haven't been able to go back to when a percentage of my savings was originally earned in terms of documents etc.

You haven't really answered the question that Herzlos asked, while the money is in the UK it may be relevant which part of the UK you live in (or perhaps more pertinently which part you are trying to buy in), the legal system in Scotland has significant differences to that in England and solicitors there operate in a different way to those in England.

There isn't really any relevant difference in relation to anti-money-laundering though.

jnorth55 · 28 October at 6:33PM

Herzlos said:

jnorth55 said:

Herzlos said:

Elliott.T123 said:

Every house I have ever bought, every house my parents have bought, every house my in-laws have bought (using far bigger cash figures than you mentioned, one of the purchased was over £1m in cash) the "proof of source of funds" has been a simple case of, here is the bank account / accounts the money is in, it has been here for 12 months. That is all the proof that was required.

I'm convinced there must be some other issue at play we're just not catching. I don't think it was mentioned anywhere, but what country are you in? We're assuming England but it's possible you're somewhere with completely different rules and we're talking at cross purposes.

What country is your money in? What kind of savings account?

Seriously, doesn't it show the issue that you assume there must be something to do with me.

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Various posters on here in what sounds like exactly the same circumstances aren't asked to provide the same information. A conveyancer (or adjacent) on here says they've never seen it, nor has anyone here heard of it happening.

So we can be fairly confident that it's not:
Local laws, because you're in the UK
The location of money, because it's been in a UK savings account for 10+ years.
The amount of money, because it's a fairly regular house buying amount.
The conveyancer/solicitor, because you've tried a few.

So what else could it be? It's hard for us to tell because you're pretty evasive with the details. If you respond to solicitors like you respond to us, I can see them wanting further scrutiny.

Maybe you just need to launder it properly and be done with it.

I'm sure you realise the effect of what you're saying here, or that fact that it's near to libel. I have not been evasive at all. When different people have asked questions I've answered. I've stated exactly where the money came from & where it is etc.

As has been pointed out this does happen. Not often perhaps but my main point here is that the system doesn't work in such instances. The option that has been suggested is to try another solicitor, which surely also confirms the system doesn't work as it should.

jnorth55 · 28 October at 6:46PM

Elliott.T123 said:

jnorth55 said:

Herzlos said:

Elliott.T123 said:

Every house I have ever bought, every house my parents have bought, every house my in-laws have bought (using far bigger cash figures than you mentioned, one of the purchased was over £1m in cash) the "proof of source of funds" has been a simple case of, here is the bank account / accounts the money is in, it has been here for 12 months. That is all the proof that was required.

I'm convinced there must be some other issue at play we're just not catching. I don't think it was mentioned anywhere, but what country are you in? We're assuming England but it's possible you're somewhere with completely different rules and we're talking at cross purposes.

What country is your money in? What kind of savings account?

Seriously, doesn't it show the issue that you assume there must be something to do with me. It really isn't. The money is in the UK, in normal bank savings accounts, as I have already said in other replies. The issue is, the only issue, that when I have been asked for 'proof of source of funds' I haven't been able to go back to when a percentage of my savings was originally earned in terms of documents etc.

I think I may be onto the issue!

When you have been asked for proof of source of funds how do you respond?

Is your response "I am not able to do this" or "I don't have those records" or something along those lines?

When asked that just send the solicitor a bank statement showing the last 12 months of the funds. Do not say anything else, do not offer up any more information, just send that and await a response.

I've done what the general advice is from the various bits of research I'd done on the house buying process, which is to send what you have & wait. As I've said the problem is when they come back & say 'we need to see proof of the source' etc. At that point I give them as much info as I can inc. names of companies I worked for, when etc. To be honest, again as I've already said, I think one issue is that there isn't actually much effort going on. It's more like whatever system the company has if something doesn't fit exactly into the 'standard' they don't actually want to listen to explanations. I'm not sure what's hard to understand about this situation; what I'm saying is surely there has to be a system that allows for people with savings going back decades that works for all of them, not just pot-luck picking a solicitor or trying several times.

jnorth55 · 28 October at 6:53PM

EssexHebridean said:

artyboy said:

EssexHebridean said:

the firm I work for does mostly conveyancing, and as a result we see a fair number of folk over a year who need to be vetted for AML and proof of funds. It's INCREDIBLY rare that anything beyond 6 months bank statements to prove savings is required - even for a cash purchase Occasionally when a lender is involved they want a little more in depth info, but even then it's rarely more than an extra 6 months proof of income and additional time back on savings statements. Very occasionally something comes up where things don't add up for whatever reason, and then more questions will be asked, but it happens so rarely I honestly can't recall the last time we had that sort of issue. In the 16 years I've been here, I think I can remember two occasions when a client's own evasiveness (not saying that this is the case with the OP - purely speaking from an "on the ground" perspective) has lead to us eventually politely saying that we were not happy to continue acting. In that time I can never recall a situation where we have asked a client for "decades" of information - or indeed even "years". It simply doesn't happen in most normal circumstances.

Solicitors are under enormous pressure these days to ensure that all AML checks are carried out and have satisfactory results - if there is anything at all that is raising red flags, it has to be looked into.

My suggestion to the OP next time they are asked for proof of funds, is to produce 6 months statements for the account the money is held in, and say nothing more about it at all - no "trying to explain" or "adding detail" - simply the bare basics, and then to see where that leads. Sometimes, the less you say, the better the outcome.

**Puts Anorak On**

At the risk of being pedantic, PROOF of funds is the easy part, i.e. establishing that the money for the transaction is available in an account somewhere.

SOURCE of funds is the side where you have to establish an ultimate link back to a legitimate money source.

Apologies if that's more detail than needed here, but it's my professional area, and they are distinct concepts for AML checks (There's also Source of Wealth, but it doesn't really come into play for a single transaction relationship like this...)

It's a good point - in conveyancing transactions the two things tend to go hand in hand, because the source also shows the proof, as a rule. They are technically two distinct and different things though as you say.

Thanks for these comments, which do get at the issue. As the savings I have are, in large part, from decades ago the 'send 6 or 12 months of bank statements' doesn't work when asked from 'sound of funds' info. If either of the companies I worked for back in the 80's, for example, where still in business I guess it might be possible to try to see if they have any records, or even any staff who remember that I worked for them at least, but I can't do that as they long since closed down. As I've said a number of times the advice used to be to shred bank statements & wage slips after a certain number of years, so we have a system brought in in 2017 that doesn't seem to have a way to deal with how documents were kept by lots of people & organisations before that.

jnorth55 · 28 October at 6:58PM

EssexHebridean said:

Elliott.T123 said:

jnorth55 said:

Herzlos said:

Elliott.T123 said:

Every house I have ever bought, every house my parents have bought, every house my in-laws have bought (using far bigger cash figures than you mentioned, one of the purchased was over £1m in cash) the "proof of source of funds" has been a simple case of, here is the bank account / accounts the money is in, it has been here for 12 months. That is all the proof that was required.

I'm convinced there must be some other issue at play we're just not catching. I don't think it was mentioned anywhere, but what country are you in? We're assuming England but it's possible you're somewhere with completely different rules and we're talking at cross purposes.

What country is your money in? What kind of savings account?

Seriously, doesn't it show the issue that you assume there must be something to do with me. It really isn't. The money is in the UK, in normal bank savings accounts, as I have already said in other replies. The issue is, the only issue, that when I have been asked for 'proof of source of funds' I haven't been able to go back to when a percentage of my savings was originally earned in terms of documents etc.

I think I may be onto the issue!

When you have been asked for proof of source of funds how do you respond?

Is your response "I am not able to do this" or "I don't have those records" or something along those lines?

When asked that just send the solicitor a bank statement showing the last 12 months of the funds. Do not say anything else, do not offer up any more information, just send that and await a response.

What I suggested several posts back then. As I said then, sometimes, saying and doing less actually gets you the desired result. It would make perfect sense that this is the issue, allowing that I (And it seems many others here too) have NEVER heard of a solicitor or conveyancer asking for documentation going back decades on this. Indeed, the only situation in which I can begin to think someone might is in a scenario where they really weren't comfortable to act for an individual, but also didn't want to say as much. Ie, a "soft" way of offloading a client.

OK. So, taking what you've said here, & applying it in general, not to my situation, what would someone do if they 100% hadn't done anything at all non-honest but were offloaded? That's my point really; there isn't a system for people in that situation. If you think about any other kind of legal or financial service there are ways to get a review or get an ombudsman's view, but it does seem that there are situations, possibly very rare, where the system simply doesn't provide a framework that works.

jnorth55 · 28 October at 7:00PM

SiliconChip said:

jnorth55 said:

Herzlos said:

Elliott.T123 said:

Every house I have ever bought, every house my parents have bought, every house my in-laws have bought (using far bigger cash figures than you mentioned, one of the purchased was over £1m in cash) the "proof of source of funds" has been a simple case of, here is the bank account / accounts the money is in, it has been here for 12 months. That is all the proof that was required.

I'm convinced there must be some other issue at play we're just not catching. I don't think it was mentioned anywhere, but what country are you in? We're assuming England but it's possible you're somewhere with completely different rules and we're talking at cross purposes.

What country is your money in? What kind of savings account?

Seriously, doesn't it show the issue that you assume there must be something to do with me. It really isn't. The money is in the UK, in normal bank savings accounts, as I have already said in other replies. The issue is, the only issue, that when I have been asked for 'proof of source of funds' I haven't been able to go back to when a percentage of my savings was originally earned in terms of documents etc.

You haven't really answered the question that Herzlos asked, while the money is in the UK it may be relevant which part of the UK you live in (or perhaps more pertinently which part you are trying to buy in), the legal system in Scotland has significant differences to that in England and solicitors there operate in a different way to those in England.

England, but as another person has pointed out AML checks are the same, or very similar elsewhere in the UK.

SiliconChip · 28 October at 7:40PM

jnorth55 said:

SiliconChip said:

jnorth55 said:

Herzlos said:

Elliott.T123 said:

Every house I have ever bought, every house my parents have bought, every house my in-laws have bought (using far bigger cash figures than you mentioned, one of the purchased was over £1m in cash) the "proof of source of funds" has been a simple case of, here is the bank account / accounts the money is in, it has been here for 12 months. That is all the proof that was required.

I'm convinced there must be some other issue at play we're just not catching. I don't think it was mentioned anywhere, but what country are you in? We're assuming England but it's possible you're somewhere with completely different rules and we're talking at cross purposes.

What country is your money in? What kind of savings account?

Seriously, doesn't it show the issue that you assume there must be something to do with me. It really isn't. The money is in the UK, in normal bank savings accounts, as I have already said in other replies. The issue is, the only issue, that when I have been asked for 'proof of source of funds' I haven't been able to go back to when a percentage of my savings was originally earned in terms of documents etc.

You haven't really answered the question that Herzlos asked, while the money is in the UK it may be relevant which part of the UK you live in (or perhaps more pertinently which part you are trying to buy in), the legal system in Scotland has significant differences to that in England and solicitors there operate in a different way to those in England.

England, but as another person has pointed out AML checks are the same, or very similar elsewhere in the UK.

I'm sure the legislation applies to all parts of the UK, but solicitors in Scotland don't work in precisely the same way as those in England when dealing with a house purchase - however, as you've confirmed that you are in England that's answered the question.

Herzlos · 28 October at 10:00PM

jnorth55 said:

Herzlos said:

jnorth55 said:

Herzlos said:

Elliott.T123 said:

Every house I have ever bought, every house my parents have bought, every house my in-laws have bought (using far bigger cash figures than you mentioned, one of the purchased was over £1m in cash) the "proof of source of funds" has been a simple case of, here is the bank account / accounts the money is in, it has been here for 12 months. That is all the proof that was required.

I'm convinced there must be some other issue at play we're just not catching. I don't think it was mentioned anywhere, but what country are you in? We're assuming England but it's possible you're somewhere with completely different rules and we're talking at cross purposes.

What country is your money in? What kind of savings account?

Seriously, doesn't it show the issue that you assume there must be something to do with me.

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Various posters on here in what sounds like exactly the same circumstances aren't asked to provide the same information. A conveyancer (or adjacent) on here says they've never seen it, nor has anyone here heard of it happening.

So we can be fairly confident that it's not:
Local laws, because you're in the UK
The location of money, because it's been in a UK savings account for 10+ years.
The amount of money, because it's a fairly regular house buying amount.
The conveyancer/solicitor, because you've tried a few.

So what else could it be? It's hard for us to tell because you're pretty evasive with the details. If you respond to solicitors like you respond to us, I can see them wanting further scrutiny.

Maybe you just need to launder it properly and be done with it.

I'm sure you realise the effect of what you're saying here, or that fact that it's near to libel. I have not been evasive at all. When different people have asked questions I've answered. I've stated exactly where the money came from & where it is etc.

We're 9 pages in and still only have vague details. I think we've got all of the pieces now but it still doesn't make sense; I don't think any of us can think of any reason you'd need to provide proof of funds for funds that are over 10 years old. There must be some detail we're missing that would explain it.

I'm sure you're not the only person in this position but it seems to be incredibly rare.

Chief_of_Staffy · 28 October at 10:37PM

No solicitor would ask to check 20 years' of financial records because

a) nobody keeps 20 years of records
b) the task would be unduly onerous, taking days of dedicated work.
c) unless there's something highly unusual like an eight figure sum in an account when you're selling a 2-up 2-down and you need to provide proof of your lottery win then there's no reason to go back 20 years
d) it puts the solicitor at greater risk, because if they've been provided with information that shows fraud and they miss it, that's significantly worse for them than if they'd never been provided with it in the first place.

Murphybear · 28 October at 10:49PM

Brie said:

I think that the problem is that different solicitors may have different ideas about what is required. It's like banks requiring a passport from someone who never has, nor intends to leave the UK.

If you haven’t got a passport there are other things they will accept as ID. There’s no legal requirement for people in the U.K. to have a passport. I’m 73, I haven’t had a passport since I was 40 something

Proof of Funds - old savings. Is PoF a system that Martin needs to look at.

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