Buying a house cash

You will need to prove funds obtained legally for any solicitor. Just state savings. To any further questions, state savings obtained through earned income and provide your HMRC self assessment tax return summaries which will record "earned income", and implicitly prove it was legally obtained over a specific period of time, recorded and accepted as legally obtained earned income, and taxed according to relevant laws.

A bank statement will likely be required but that's more to verify account for money transfers. Switch to monthly statements to minimise any privacy concerns if that's an issue for you. I'd avoid conveyancing factories that lack flexibility or human contact - they're more likely to rigidly stick to their own process which may deviate from the legal requirement. As a cash buyer you'd want to avoid an outfit like that anyway.

Your EA will likely also ask for proof of funds before accepting an offer as proceedable. This should only need to be for the deposit but may vary. If you organise a solicitor in advance, you can also ask them to provide EA with a note verifying they have had sight of funds and confirm you are financially proceedable.

If you’re registered as self employed you’ll have your SA302 and you can be fairly vague about it, call it social media work or something.

If you’re not paying tax on it, then yeah you will have an issue, because tax evasion is money laundering and that’s what the checks are set up to find.

I bought a house for cash in 2021. When I made the offer the estate agent required proof of funds and ID to confirm the funds belonged to me. I showed them the online proof of the balance in my account.
My solicitor didn't ask for any documentation when carrying out the conveyancing.

Besides the point but can I ask if it’s online is it just live cam stuff? Is it hard to build a paying audience / a lot of effort? I’d be interested!

Well that was easy 🤣

If you’re happy to take your kit off to strangers, disclosing the source of income to your solicitor is really nothing - all they care about is that it’s been legally obtained- and they have a legal obligation to do so too so they will be thorough.

If you are worried about sharing this with a solicitor, use a firm at the other end of the country. They don't have to be local, or meet you.

I am not an expert on this but if you have tax returns or company accounts to show, it should be fine. And solicitors will keep your private business confidential, so don’t worry about your work somehow finding out about your sex work.

Suggest that you state savings
No further info required

Other people may put

Inheritance
Gifted
Savings
Loan
Mortgage
Split from ex
Some sort of monetary pay out or compensation
Prize win
Or a combination of some or all the above

Yes they ask for proof of where finances are coming from.

So long as you’ve been registered with HMRC and paying tax you’ll be fine. If you haven’t it could get complicated.

The problem with this is that the payments will come from lots of different individuals so there may well be additional checks to ensure the OP isn’t using money from, say, dealing drugs to launder through the house purchase.

OP, you need to ask your solicitor before you go further with a purchase.

You have to show proof of funds and statements for 6 months. You can declare it as 'salary', you don't need to declare who your employer is.

Yes you will probably be asked how you accumulated the money. It is standard anti laundering checks.
We recently moved some money from one investment product to another. These are our retirement savings. We were asked how we came by the money in the first place. They did not go into too much detail. They even seem to ask you now if you take more than a thousand pounds out of the bank in cash.

You will have to provide proof of funds but beyond that it’s not your solicitor’s business. I doubt they would show a reaction if you said you made money via sex work alongside your job. It would be unprofessional of them to do so. Plus I think you are overthinking how much others judge women who make money from sex work. Most of us wouldn’t want to do it but don’t judge others that do.

Your solicitor won’t care what sort of legitimate work the money comes from but they are required to ask and have it evidenced directly due to money laundering regs.

your tax returns will suffice.

I wouldn’t even worry about the solicitor knowing, it’s not like you’ll ever have any contact with them ever again.

I doubt they’ll ask too many questions though, particularly if you can show its income you’ve paid tax on.

Just a thought, before you buy a property to let speak to an accountant. Might be best through a limited company.

Hi @Sarah2407 you've said you declare to HMRC and pay relevant tax. All you'd need to do is show some bank statements and tax returns. A solicitor is not going to care what the business is as its legal and I doubt they'd ask.

Good for you in saving to buy outright, that is incredible.

I bought cash and just said it was from savings. No other questions asked. I was on a very low salary and nobody asked to see that. I might have had to show a bank statement with the savings in though.

You'll definitely have to provide bank statements to your solicitor to show the source of your funds.

Just say it's from your online business. Not sure if they'll probe further - probably depends how the payments appear on your statement.

I got divorced last year and bought a house with cash.

I needed to provide bank statements and the divorce settlement to show where the money had come from.

If you have declared your self employed income to HMRC and paid tax on it there is no problem. Just tell the solicitor you run a business online and this is the earnings from that. You can show your tax returns to prove it. You don't need to tell them what the business is. If they ask just say you do a bit of freelancing or something equally as vague.

Yes you will have to prove where that income comes from and that it is a legal source, so if you can do that then no problem.

You do have to prove where your money has come from under U.K. money laundering rules. You are self employed and the money has been obtained legally. That’s all you need to prove.

Any solicitor who does not ask for this info is breaking the law and you probably wouldn’t be able to buy the property as a result.

I bought my house cash as I downsized earlier this year. Yes, I was asked to provide a completion statement of the sale of my property and bank statements showing my salary paid into my account.