How Long Back do you have to provide evidence for the Money Laundering Checks?

Smalltownhypocrite

I bought with inheritance.

I just showed the probate certificate and the account the money was in (separate from my daily account). All the money in listed where it came from (life insurance, the back account transferred into mine when it was closed, pension etc...) nothing else went in or out. Nothing else needed to doing.

I imagine its a lot more complicated if you have been saving up bits of your pay or bouncing money around accounts or get gifted a lot of money from someone but in my case I didn't need to provide anything except those two simple items.

EssexHebridean

Sounds like in this instance the OP's parents were beneficiaries only - so may never have had copies of the will or grant of probate. regardless, in normal circumstances money dating back 16 years will not require anything further back that a few years statements for the account it has been in. As with the other thread that was referenced - it sounds like the timescale is not the issue here, there is something else raising red flags.  

mills112

user1977 said:

mills112 said:

user1977 said:

mills112 said:

user1977 said:

mills112 said:

user1977 said:

mills112 said:

they always have to check the original source of the funds, irrespective on how long ago it was.  as it is inherited money, you need to prove that it was inherited.

So like I said, they'd also need to check where gran got her money from, wouldn't they? And so on...

i don't think so, as long as they can check its last source, that is the gran's estate, that will suffice 

No, merely checking the "last source" is not necessarily sufficient - it could e.g. have recently been passed around several parties in an effort to conceal where it actually came from. But going back 16 years is absurd - if it's obviously been in the clients' hands for years, you can safely assume it's really their money.

it is about demonstrating whether they have taken the neccesary steps to verify the money so the minimum that they must do is at least check the last source

Where are you getting this from? There is no such minimum mandatory requirement. If the inheritance was 60 years ago rather than 16, would you still consider it essential to go back that far?

i would have thought that when you inherit a large amount of money, there would be a paper trail no?

Usually there'll be some records which might help with plausibility that there was an inheritance, but there is unlikely to be a carefully-filed paper trail of the actual transfers of the estate to the beneficiaries. They could have inherited granny's cash from under her mattress - totally legit but there won't be records to evidence it.

just because you have had the money for 16 years doesn't necessarily mean you got it legit.

It doesn't mean gran got it legit either! But the solicitors aren't expected to delve that deeply.

they need to check source of funds and the minimum must be the last source, so i can't see how they wouldn't ask for details of the inheritance as a minimum.  they can certainly ask for more but then i would say it would be unreasonable.  asking for the details of the inheritance, i would think is reasonable.

if the inheritance was 60 years ago, then i would say that is nigh impossible and so would not be considered reasonable 

But you just said the minimum must be the last source? Are you now agreeing that you can draw a line somewhere, you're just debating where that is?

i never said there wasn't a line, i was saying that 16 years isn't that long to request information about a large inheritance as that should be available if you look hard enough.

from my experience, solicitors can refuse to act for you at all if they can't see proof of the funds, so if you had inherited the money 60 years ago and obviously there wouldn't be any evidence easily available for that, the solicitors are likely to refuse to act at all as they can't verify the source of the funds.  if the source of the funds can't be verified, even if there is a good reason as to why not, they may still be unable to proceed as they can't make decisions on availability when it comes to law.  if you can't show the source of the funds, even if you have good reason for this, then you won't pass the AML checks and can't use the funds for the purchase.

solicitors see things in very black and white and they don't tend to use "give someone the benefit of the doubt" unless they know you.  they are very much of the practice of cross the "t" and dot the "i".

mills112

fistfulofsteel said:

Is it worth me trying to use a conveyancer if I don't have any documentation going back far enough to prove my source of funds? I've been saving since the 1980s but always thrown out bank statements / opted for paperless and moved my ISA every year for better interest rates so no access to old records as accounts closed. I'm currently earning less than I spend, although I could download tax summaries from HMRC showing self employment income of up to around 20K some years. I'm buying in cash from a relative for 100K so DIY is an option. Would working out how to do the land registry forms be less of a headache than the AML checks? I don't want to pay a conveyancer a big fee and then hit a brick wall and have to walk away and find someone else / do it ourselves.

i think the issue with DIY is that when it comes to HMRC, they may be suspiscious of the amount paid for the property.  also i am not sure how willing the land registry is going to be about accepting a property transfer transaction without solicitors being involved, but yeah, technically speaking you should be able to DIY, but there is a risk that the relative takes the money and won't transfer the title to you and vice versa as DIY isn't strong enough if there is a dispute.

mills112

silvercar said:

On our last purchase involvement, we just said an accumulation of savings over many decades, provided bank statements that showed an excess of income over expenditure for the last 6 months and a statement from a savings account that showed an amount greater than the deposit had been sitting in that account for over 6 years. They were satisfied with that and then only required that the money transferred to them should come from an account in our name, it didn’t need to be from that particular savings account. 

Then we helped our other child buy, with a similar deposit and the procedure was broadly similar with an different solicitor. So I don’t think that all solicitors are so pedantic.

i think the issue here is that the OP didn't say it was from savings but inheritance.  if they said it was savings then the solictors can just see bank statements and work out for themselves that it does sound reasonable that the money could have been built up from savings.

it all depends on how much we are talking about.  if you had savings of £1m but you have always worked as a pizza delivery driver and claimed to have saved that over 20 years, i think they may not believe that, lol.

mills112

user1977 said:

fistfulofsteel said:

I'm buying in cash from a relative for 100K so DIY is an option.

Is your relative using a solicitor? If so then they're likely to be even more paranoid about where your money has come from if you're doing your side DIY.

But generally solicitors are only looking back a number of months, not years or decades.

And if necessary, you can ask the banks for copies of statements for closed accounts. Generally it's advised to keep records for seven years for tax purposes, if nothing else.

if the other side is using a solicitor then they will not agree to act with a DIY.  i had a colleague who wanted to do DIY but the other side solicitors refused to act with him as they said he is not qualified and they don't want to deal with anyone that is not qualified and registered.

mills112

EssexHebridean said:

Sounds like in this instance the OP's parents were beneficiaries only - so may never have had copies of the will or grant of probate. regardless, in normal circumstances money dating back 16 years will not require anything further back that a few years statements for the account it has been in. As with the other thread that was referenced - it sounds like the timescale is not the issue here, there is something else raising red flags.  

could they not ask for a copy of the probate from the probate office if the executor no longer has a copy?  something like that would be kept on file with the probate office surely?

silvercar

grumpy_codger said:

silvercar said:

....and a statement from a savings account that showed an amount greater than the deposit had been sitting in that account for over 6 years. ....So I don’t think that all solicitors are so pedantic.

6 years and you think that your solicitor wasn't pedantic?! Big amount sitting in the same account for over 6 years?! 

I think very few people here neglect their money this way*. And as I posted above my solicitor was happy with 6 months if not less.

*ATM my family has £70K in various regular savings accounts.

It wasn't neglected, it was an offset savings account linked to our own mortgage, so (a) effectively earning tax free the equivalent of our mortgage interest rate and (b) it had a specific purpose. 

The fact that we chose to use it for AML purposes was just to make life simple, it was a sum larger than we were using as a gifted deposit and it was easy to show it had been there for a long time. We didn't actually withdraw from that account. 

EssexHebridean

mills112 said:

EssexHebridean said:

Sounds like in this instance the OP's parents were beneficiaries only - so may never have had copies of the will or grant of probate. regardless, in normal circumstances money dating back 16 years will not require anything further back that a few years statements for the account it has been in. As with the other thread that was referenced - it sounds like the timescale is not the issue here, there is something else raising red flags.  

could they not ask for a copy of the probate from the probate office if the executor no longer has a copy?  something like that would be kept on file with the probate office surely?

The Executor could, certainly. Of course, we have no idea in this situation whether the executor is even still available to make such a request, it's far from impossible that they may not be. 

monkey-fingers

GixerKate said:

Posting on behalf of my parents who are the process of buying a house mortgage free.  They are selling their current house and using some funds that have been sitting in a saving accounts for years to purchase the property.  The funds were mainly inherited when my Grandmother died in 2010.

They have now been asked to provide evidence of my Grandmother's estate from 2010 even though they have already provided years of saving account statements which clearly show the money has been there for years.  

Is this right or are the solicitors being a bit over-zealous?

Did it go through probate? I'm guessing if it's significant amounts, it probably will.
https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate

Costs £16.