Are the solicitors being intrusive or is this right?

[yarncakes]

Currently in the process of buying a house and my parent kindly sent me money to do up the kitchen after we move in as it needs working doing on it. Just to clarify that it is not a gifted deposit as we paid that ourselves but now the solicitor wants my parent to send over 3 months worth of bank statement, write a letter to say that they transferred the money to my account and asking to go to a solicitor to get them certified because they want to see where the money actually came from, but surely that's none of their business because the deposit has been paid with my own money?

Proof is there already showing my salary being moved to my savings every month. I'm guessing because when I sent over my bank statement, it showed my parent transferring the money to me. But is this really necesaary? Seeing as I'm not actually using it towards buying the house, but only for things to buy FOR the house? I understand money laundering but this is being extremely intrusive seeing as I am not using towards paying for the house anyway.

Anti Money Laundering checks...it’s standard. You’ll need to comply or you won’t be able to complete the transaction.

Yes they need to do this as it could be seen to be covering part of the deposit/fund for the transaction. You should have waited till completion for them to send you the money.

Yup standard checks they should of transferred the money to you once you completed. I’m surprised your solicitor didn’t suggest that

It’s totally standard - your solicitors are required to do these checks in order to comply with law society rules. It’s as much a pain for them as for you!

Yes, you need to do this.

Absolutely standard procedure against moneylaundering. All solicitors handling large financial transfers are obliged to seek and examine these proofs.

Anything over £3K is going to be looked at.

I had similar scenario but I just explained to solicitor and offered to provide bank statements over a longer course proving we had saved in excess of our deposit amount so wouldn’t be using the money from a parent towards purchase and it was fine. I suppose it depends on lenders too.

This is standard in terms of Anti-Money Laundering checks, you'll need to comply.

but surely that's none of their business because the deposit has been paid with my own money?

They have a responsibility (in law) to understand where funds came from and to establish whether there is suspicion of illegality. An explanation of 'it's not to buy the house, it's for XYZ closely linked purpose' would be grounds for investigation, just to confirm what you've said is true.

Yep my parents gifted me some money and it was all investigated.

OK thanks everyone. Yes your right should've just waited til I was in the house but never mind.

Yep, money laundering checks. Pain in the arse we have to do all the time

Hopefully one upside (one of the only ones) of leaving the EU is that we can revise the MLR. I doubt they have prevented one terrorist transaction, but just cause mayhem for a lot of people. We need a risk-based approach, not a tick box one.

Bank statements are a pain too because they won't accept print-offs but how many people get paper statements these days? So that's another expense and delay having to order them from the bank.

Money laundering. It’s because you might be a criminal

Property deals are the easiest way to wash dirty money