Buying a house cash

[Sarah2407]

Right so I know I will get a lot of negative hate comments for this to which I will ignore.
But I wanted to get some advice. Would I be able to buy a house cash (no mortgage) outright without having to explain where I recieved all my money from?

I do some sex work online and have made a significant amount. Not sure what to do with it so seems like the best thing would be to invest it into a property (max £300,000) I also have a full time job that I could show worth (£50,000) but that would not be enough for a mortgage anyway.

Please don't bother with the negative comments I honestly will not respond. Yes I do some wrong things online but hey who's perfect

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Well that was easy 🤣

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!

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.

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.

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.

Yes, they will check the source of the money. But as long as it's legal and you've paid tax, then honestly they won't care. You do you bo!

That's not true

They will go by your self assessment tax returns, so if the income is declared as self employed income, it should be OK

no for many of those they ask proof - we were gifted a generous sum by family and solicitors made them sign paperwork to say it was a gift and not an investment and that they wouldn’t take any kind of interest from value of house raising etc.

"Online Business" that's all you need to say. As long as you have tax returns, they won't ask any further. And if they do, it's likely to be out of curiosity!

A lot of sole traders have this. It is tax returns they will be concerned with. Unlikely a drug dealer is submitting a tax return.

DH and I employed a financial advisor last year to look into our pensions and savings. I inherited from my late DF during that time and in order for the FA to set up an ISA and a savings account for me, I needed to show him exactly where the money had come from (down to the £1 premium bond being redeemed).

As long as you are paying tax on your income you are fine. Nobody will question where you got the money from. You are self employed and want to invest. Pick a house and tell them you will be paying cash. They will be happy to take your money.

If you're earning enough to buy a property outright then you might want to get an accountant to make sure you're being tax efficient.

There are rules around this as I was reading up on them a few years ago with regard to showing where money comes from. Presumably mostly to do with new rules on money laundering as well as tax avoidance issues.

I'd second talking to a solicitor.

I understand cracking down on laundering etc but it does piss me off that we're all being scrutinised to death about our own money whilst they're knowingly doing nothing about people using off shore accounts and scams to avoid UK taxpayer status. One rule for us and other for them.

I was interrogated about transferring money from my own account to an ebank account the other day and remember being interrogated for withdrawing a large cash sum from a bank a few years back when I was going overseas for some time.

I work for an accountancy practice which is unusual in that it has a large number of clients working in the adult industry.

This is something we get asked all the time.

The simple answer is you will need to have declared your income and have tax returns to prove it. You do not have to declare your specific employment type to HMRC. We have a list of practical job titles for purposes such as this.

Buying a house with cash is not a problem but you will have to have " evidence" of the income source due to anti money laundering regulations. There are likely to be significant ways to legally minimise taxable income which many pepole aren't aware of. If you aren't getting accountancy advice I'd strongly consider getting some.

What do you declare the income for hmrc purposes as? I know of sex workers who use terms like therapist for it.

Having a self employed side business is fine, provided it’s legal (which this is) but obviously being a drug dealer wouldn’t be.

So tell your solicitor you have a self employed online business/therapist and that’s where the funds came from.

Alternatively if it's investment you're after buy an overseas property or two, find a manager and airbnb it.

My dad gifted me a substantial amount to help my deposit, and the mortgage broker needed a letter from his lawyer to explain the money had come from an inheritance.

You may come across something like that, but I'd hope you wouldn't have to.

I've bought two flats as a cash buyer and I'm self employed and freelance. They'll want to know where the money is from, but not beyond 'income from self employment' in my experience (as PP have said, just make sure your tax returns are in order).

In my experience, having the money and not needing a lender means they'll snap your arm off so make sure you get a good price 😀

The difference with the above though is that you are talking about getting cash into a bank account and thus legitimate rather than earnings that have been paid into an account and therefore evidenced.

I'm curious as to how online work results in cash rather than an electronic payment though.