Dh and I have been fortunate that my mum and stepdad have been willing to gift some money towards our house deposit (from my eventual inheritance). House purchase is currently paused because the lender has been waiting for restrictions to be lifted so that the valuation could be completed. We are hoping this will be completed soon though and that we can exchange/complete by July.
During lockdown it's come to my attention that stepdad has a very troubling criminal record from before he met my mum. I suspect she has no idea, but I can't know for sure. It's troubling enough that we will go NC as a result. My concern is that when we do, stepdad and/or my mum may try to cause issues related to this gifted money (for example, trying to tell the lender it was a loan rather than a gift, or whatever else they might be able to do to generally cause us grief).
My question is: what sort of documentation should be make sure we have in place so that there can be no dispute related to the nature of this money?
We already have a signed gift letter from them, which is on file with our mortgage advisor, the lender and with our solicitor. They have also completed a separate form confirming the money was a gift with our solicitor. And I have copies of emails back and forth discussing it (for example, them saying how much they would like to contribute, us emailing to say thank you when the bank transfer was received). I obviously also have all the financial records of the transfer, etc. Do we need anything else to protect ourselves?
Also, is this something we should mention to our solicitor? By that, I mean our concerns that they may try to claim the gift is not a gift and to explain to solicitor the reason why (they we have information on stepdad's past criminal convictions). I am inclined to discuss it with the solicitor, so that it is on file, but dh is nervous because he thinks that will somehow cause us even more problems and that it's better for now to just pretend we are none the wiser and just complete and hope for the best.