Solicitor made me translate a document

[Szesze11]

Hi, I feel my solicitor made me translate a contract document unnecessary. This cost me money.
I am in the process of buying a property and a small amount of the deposit came from a sold property from Hungary. I am buying the property in the UK. The contract is in Hungarian and they made me translate to English, which cost me money.
I supplied the original contract along with all transaction receipts relating to the transaction.
I thought the translation was needed for the mortgage application, but this wasn't the case. We actually received the mortgage application before sending the translated document.
When I questioned the solicitor they told me: "The checks completed by your lender are usually less in depth as they are completing affordability checks where as we are sourcing the funds as they travel through our accounts."
I just feel like the translation was totally unnecessary, as they could see the transaction details from the original contract, matched by all the other transaction receipts / bank statements.
What do you think?

It was their money laundering checks and it was necessary

I think you sound ridiculous. Maybe you shouldn't be venturing into property ownership if you can't understand something as simple as anti-money laundering checks?

How embarrassing to cast aspersions on the conveyancer for that.

This was nothing to do with your mortgage application.

As your solicitor says, the mortgage lender is only really interested in whether you can afford the mortgage. However, your solicitor is required to carry out anti-money laundering checks to make sure that the money from Hungary is not the product of criminal activities. The translation was necessary.

OK, thanks for the replies. I understand they need to check due to fraud prevention. What I don't understand is it took me 2 minutes to translate the document by doing a quick google search and using a tool. The translator is not verifying the legitimacy of the document, and I supplied more than enough evidence, hence the reason why I felt it unnecessary.

That.
Exactly.

Solicitors are under incredibly, some say ridiculously, onerous requirements on ensuring they know their client and that any money they handle is 100% clean.

If they don't do it by the book the Solicitors Regulation Authority is down like a ton of bricks.

@Szesze11 do you mean you had to get, and pay for, a professional translation rather then do it yourself or use an on line tool?

If yes then again it's down to the requirements the Solicitor needs to fulfil.

I know Google & Co are trying to put translators out of work, but Legal is one area where you cannot cut corners.

Yabu, it was absolutely necessary.

The translator is verifying the translation. Which is necessary as the solicitor needs to know reliably what it says

I'm confused. Are you expecting legal checks to be based on googling?

@Bromptotoo they asked me to use a certified translator, which I did.
But out of curiosity I went and tried translating the document myself, which I managed to do very quickly and pretty accurately. hehe
Guess this won't be a topic in a few years time when more automation comes into our lives.
Thanks for all the replies. I get why it was needed, it just seems a very pointless cost with today's technology, as translator is not verifying that it's a legit document, they only translate.

So you already Google translated it and now the solicitor is asking for a sworn translation ?

Even if it had not been strictly necessary (and I am sure it was necessary), surely the money the translation cost you is a drop in the ocean of costs that come with buying property.

I wonder if you'll take the same attitude when you pay construction professionals to work on the house?

If you pay them to file a bathroom and come on to find they've bought plastic stick in tiles from Dunelm, for example?

Jeez. Who would be a professional working for walk in clients?

Tile^

Google translate is not reliable enough for the legal requirements, I had to use it to translate a basic guide to employment law and it was awful. It’s an unexpected expense for you but one that is predictable if you’re using funding from overseas. Just be glad you’re not dealing with the Italian legal system, you’d have had to go in person to do anything.

Thanks for your input, but I feel like that's a bit different though....this is a thing that anyone can do in minutes with today's technology, but what you are referring to is a skilled job that needs years of training.

Thanks for your input, but I feel like that's a bit different though....this is a thing that anyone can do in minutes with today's technology, but what you are referring to is a skilled job that needs years of training.

You don't think your solicitor is in a skilled job that takes years of training?

You should be grateful s/he's doing it by the book and not following your folksy ad-hoc idea of how to meet regulatory requirements.

Solicitors can be jailed if they don't comply with money laundering rules.

There is a risk with google translate that it selected one meaning of a word instead of a similar word, which normally doesn't matter but could be a big issue with legal documents, which need to be precise. Computers don't understand what they are translating so can't check this.

By using a professional translator the solicitor has confidence it is precise and they have fully complied with money laundering rules (and therefore they won't risk being arrested)

I did not say that, I was referring to the translator's job. And I appreciate it's a skilled job as well, but regrettably with technology's state it's a pretty redundant field now...

Putting private contract wording into Google translate is mad and I wouldn't hire a legal firm that did that. My company built its own in-house machine translator for confidentiality and gdpr reasons and to make.sure that everthing stayed on our own servers not Google's.

OK, let me clarify I found a tool using Google search, didn't put it in google translate as per say.

Yeah. A solicitor isn't going to lose their job and career or magically acquire a foreign language to save you some money I'm afraid. Evidence is only evidence if it is legible to the person reading it, and legal translators are necessary to ensure nuanced language is correct.

But op it doesn't matter what tool you used -thats your contract and your private information. I'm saying a law firm can't do that.

You've appointed a professional to conduct a transaction for you. Large sums of money are at stake (the house value). Why on earth would you expect them to cut corners and 'Google it'?!

Going back to the tiler analogy, would you use an installer who when asked what their experience is replies "I find YouTube tutorials are pretty adequate"?

Well they don't do because they are bored nor do they ask their clients 'does me asking this meet your approval so if you disapprove we won't bother'

Its not the translation as such but the certification thats needed, a Google tool can't sign to say its a true certified copy and thats what was needed and what you paid for.