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RetiredandHappy
Posts: 13 Forumite
I gifted my daughter some money last October which she is now using as part of a deposit for a house purchase.
She declared it as a gift and I have signed a template letter provided by the mortgage advisor stating that it is a gift and that I have no claim on the money.
He wants to check my identity (passport - I am grudgingly OK with that) and have a copy of my bank statement. I am playing up about that as it contains a lot of information that clearly has no bearing on money-laundering (transactions after I handed the money on, transactions involving my other daughters, my savings account number) and does not provide anything to satisfy him as my gift came from a deposit paid into the account only hours earlier.
In fact it came from my share account and it appears he may wish to pore through that. Ultimately the money was inherited when my parents passed on - but where did they get it from? (Undoubtedly a Russian Billionaire - not).
I tried redacting the information he did not need and may have gone one step too far with that as I took out the incoming payment as well as the genuinely irrelevant stuff. He is now saying no redaction is permitted.
Does the FCA really say that I have to tell the world my financial affairs. (World - himself, anybody who works with him who can access the file, the mortgage company - who knows how many people there, the solicitor, her colleagues etc)
One minute we are supposed to be being very cautious about our personal information and the next government is insisting we spread it around wildly.
Any comments, advice, is he going over the top, where does it end.
She declared it as a gift and I have signed a template letter provided by the mortgage advisor stating that it is a gift and that I have no claim on the money.
He wants to check my identity (passport - I am grudgingly OK with that) and have a copy of my bank statement. I am playing up about that as it contains a lot of information that clearly has no bearing on money-laundering (transactions after I handed the money on, transactions involving my other daughters, my savings account number) and does not provide anything to satisfy him as my gift came from a deposit paid into the account only hours earlier.
In fact it came from my share account and it appears he may wish to pore through that. Ultimately the money was inherited when my parents passed on - but where did they get it from? (Undoubtedly a Russian Billionaire - not).
I tried redacting the information he did not need and may have gone one step too far with that as I took out the incoming payment as well as the genuinely irrelevant stuff. He is now saying no redaction is permitted.
Does the FCA really say that I have to tell the world my financial affairs. (World - himself, anybody who works with him who can access the file, the mortgage company - who knows how many people there, the solicitor, her colleagues etc)
One minute we are supposed to be being very cautious about our personal information and the next government is insisting we spread it around wildly.
Any comments, advice, is he going over the top, where does it end.
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Comments
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My parents gave me a gift which was used ad a deposit. The solicitor wanted a copy of their bank statement to check that it actually came from their account- we provided this as couldn't see a way around. We did however block out account numbers etc of the statement.
Perhaps others can share their experiences of similar situations to help.
All the best.0 -
It is normal for lenders to request a gifted deposit form/letter and donor bank statement showing the funds going out and recipient bank statement for receipt.
They may not request this up-front, but often insist the broker obtains and hold such documentation on file against a future request.
Solicitors also request this, along with ID for the donor.
The Money Laundering Act isn't FCA. Those of us in the industry set our own interpretation/requirements for its satisfaction, so there is no right and wrong answer, until we find out we've done something wrong.I am a mortgage broker. You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a Mortgage Adviser, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice. Please do not send PMs asking for one-to-one-advice, or representation.0 -
Pretty much if you want it to bne able to be used as a deposit.
Your daughte's solicitor will probably charge £100 for having to deal with it too. Gifts are not free for housing purchases!0 -
We had a large deposit £20,000 of which was gifted. We had to provide statements to mortgage from my father in law to prove where it had came from and I'm sure the solicitors wanted one from a few months previous too to show where it had come from.
I'm under the impression it's all normal proceedings but I did blank out account numbers and personal details not needed0 -
We gifted a deposit to my sister around £20k, no questions were asked aside from the provision of a letter.Thinking critically since 1996....0
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It's all butt covering exercise on part of the solicitors. The lawmakers in their infinite wisdom decided to make them liable under the money laundering act for any "dirty" money used for property purchases.
Many of them do not fully understand the regulations and are going overboard just to be on the safe side.
I had a massive row over this with my solicitor but at the end relented and just handed over the information to meet the exchange deadline.
It's all completely useless and ridiculous, they only focus on lump sums in your account in the past 3-6 months. So if you make/receive the gift 6 months in advance, no one will ask you about it, it's just savings... It's the same bloody money.
And how can you suspect someone that is scraping a 5% deposit and borrowing the other 95% of money laundering...
Then it's public secret that half of central London is in the hands of foreign individuals and off-shore companies with unknown owners, but like so many other things it's much easier to go after the little guys.0 -
It's all butt covering exercise on part of the solicitors. The lawmakers in their infinite wisdom decided to make them liable under the money laundering act for any "dirty" money used for property purchases.
Not all solicitors adhered to the rules in the past. Collusion between parties was part of the reason behind the downfall of the Chesea Building Society.0 -
All UK banks are already on the hook for money laundering, I have worked for several banks and they are really taking it seriously on every level. If the deposit monies are coming from the UK bank account this should be a sufficient reason to consider them "clean" and if they turn out to be dirty the banks are already liable. So why involving another layer of checks? At least limit the double checking to large amounts, say 100k+, there are much easier ways to launder 20-30k than using them as a deposit for residential mortgage.Thrugelmir wrote: »Not all solicitors adhered to the rules in the past. Collusion between parties was part of the reason behind the downfall of the Chesea Building Society.0 -
If I remember right, my in-laws just blacked out all other transactions in the copy of the bank statements they provided.Original mortgage: December 2017, £203,495
MFW start: April 2018, £201,800
Mortgage neutral: September 2022, mortgage redeemed: December 2022
New house, new mortgage: December 2022, £276,007
Current balance: £217,800 minus £8,300 overpayment savings pot0 -
Yeh, why on earth do solicitors need to do any kind of money-laundering checks on that gift from Uncle Pablo in Medellin, Uncle Vito in Palermo, or Uncle Vladimir in Moscow, anyway?0
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