Buying a house with Bitcoin (partially)

monkey-fingers

Do you have any family who has a bit of wealth?

It might be easier if you explain the situation then ask them to gift you some money.
Providing their source of money is better than crypto, you can then pay them back.

user1977

you can then pay them back

Funny sort of gift! Though only matters if the OP is buying with a mortgage.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81926126#Comment_81926126

For a gift to a family member for a house deposit, I paid partly from tax free cash from a pension, and partly from Premium Bonds. For the pension they only asked for a current statement showing I had enough in it, and no questions at all. For the Premium Bonds just showed some info that the money had been there at least a year, and no questions about where the original funds came from .

For sure the solicitors were very competent in every other respect, so they were obviously just taking a pragmatic view of the AML rules.

monkey-fingers

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81926450#Comment_81926450

Clearly, there's an element of trust here, because you're both going to have to sign up to say you're not paying back.

I suppose you could "gift" the relative the money first.
And they could "gift" you some other money.

user1977

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81926590#Comment_81926590

That's a "loan". We usually stop short of recommending mortgage fraud as a money-saving technique.

artyboy

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81926450#Comment_81926450

No, when we gifted our child the money to buy her first property outright, her solicitor still insisted that we sign a form to say that it was a gift and not a loan. So lack of mortgage doesn't get around this…

user1977

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81927707#Comment_81927707

Ok, there's no good reason why a solicitor ought to care about the arrangement. Maybe they just did it out of habit rather than engaging their brain.

artyboy

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81927853#Comment_81927853

Again, no. The solicitor's position is that this is best practice in protecting their own client's interest, I.e. making it clear that no one else has any beneficial interest in the property.

Of course, the purchaser can instruct them to proceed without it, but equally they can then decline to act further. I can at least understand the rationale here, even if it's not as cut and dried a reason as "the mortgage lender demands it"

user1977

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81927868#Comment_81927868

Yes, the buyer may of course want it documented, but there's no good reason why the solicitor ought to insist on it irrespective of their clients' instructions.

artyboy

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81927885#Comment_81927885

…because it is considered to be in their clients best interests, and that's the duty of a solicitor, to ask for things that fulfill that mandate. A solicitor doesn't ask their client for precise instruction on what they need to do - there is a standard set of actions and best practices that they would reasonably be expected to follow for conveyancing.

I think we disagree with whether or not this is a 'standard' request, but from what I've read, it does sound fairly standard, and I can appreciate the reason for that.