Gifted deposit problem - elderly parents and lack of ID.

[Tusktusk]

My elderly parents have very kindly gifted me a sum of money to help with my house deposit. Relevant context - my father has dementia. He knows who I am and absolutely wanted to give me this money. My mother is fine and is the one in charge of everything, including finances. They both wanted to give me this money. They discussed it in front of me (my father can hold onto a conversation in the moment but will have forgotten it within a few minutes). They are in their mid eighties. They have transferred the money to me from their joint bank account.

My conveyencing solicitor needs to verify their identities. My father has no passport and no driving license. My solicitor is asking for an ID1 form instead. I just don’t want to put my father through the hassle and stress of having a verification appointment, where everything will need to be explained to him again and again and I know he will find it super stressful.

What can I do?

All I can think of is not using the money and reapplying for my mortgage with a smaller deposit.

Or getting him a passport? Which could take weeks.

Or what?

Easier for your mum to open a sole account, transfer money back to joint, transfer to your mum, your mum transfers to you

Part of the AML checks will be your parents proving where they got the money, so suggestion by pp may add more hassle. Confirm with your solicitor, but source of funds checks these days can be borderline deranged and go on and on. Rarely are they just ID.

Does your mother have a POA? I am not certain but it might be that if she is legally in charge of your father's financial affairs and she can prove her ID, that he won't have to prove his. You'd need to get advice from you solicitor of course.

Thanks for the replies. No POA. I did wonder about a sole account but I thought it would look dodgy and yes, they would still want to check where the funds came from.

Should I just get him a passport?

And I’m sorry to whinge and I know these rules are in place for a reason but it just feels really hard right now. Lots on my plate. Don’t need this! And my parents definitely don’t need this. All because my parents are super lovely and wanted to help me out.

A passport won’t take long and might be less hassle if she already has id

I got my mother a passport for a similar reason. I didn't fast track it and it only took a couple of weeks.

A drivers license is a valid ID. Does he have one.

Just get him a passport.

if he’s getting a pension and has worked in the uk and paid tax it’s easy for the government to do the checks.

I used my over 60s bus pass as ID at a solicitors (my driving licence was at Swansea being renewed) Does he have a bus pass?

if has has still got one, he shouldn't have with dementia, it should have been surrendered. using it as ID in these circumstances could cause more problems than it solves

Well the OP said in the initial post that he doesn't have one, so moot point, just shutting down that avenue now as people missed that part of the first post.

A passport is the most obvious and least-distressing way ahead I think. Also a really good time to think about applying for POA - I have both health and wealth for both of my parents. Hoping to never have to use them, but there are there if I do and it's good peace of mind for all of us.

Property solicitor here - firstly, apologies, because it is SO intrusive. The obligations put on solicitors and conveyancers in respect of AML is absolutely insane. It takes up a huge part of my job and clients understandably hate it, but there is set precedent of the SRA issuing personal fines to solicitors who don’t comply with their firms AML policies, and firm sanctions to firms with poor AML policies.

Unfortunately, as a PP has said, it’s not just the ID. They’re also going to have to show where that money has come from for them to give it to you, not to mention the fact that in theory the fact your dad has dementia and may not have had capacity to make that decisions should be flagged up. In these circumstances, I would honestly look to take a slightly different mortgage, and then use their gift to overpay the mortgage within the parameters allowed by your lender (eg some won’t let you pay off more than 10% per year for the duration of the fixed term).

Please also consider a POA for your dad whilst he’s still able to, it’ll ultimately make life much easier.

And on a personal note, sending you my thoughts, it’s not easy to deal with a family member with dementia.

if he can't retain the content of discussions for more than a few minutes, I fear that the time for POA is gone and it will now need a guardianship order. Honestly I think that @Nottodaythankyou123 is right and, for the moment at least, you need to go ahead with the mortgage without that generous gift.

As stated there will also be source of funds questions - it's a nightmare you'll not be able to get around it my having MIL transfer the funds either

As stated there will also be source of funds questions - it's a nightmare you'll not be able to get around it my having MIL transfer the funds either

The problem for the OP if they don’t use the gift towards the deposit is that their LTV ratio will be higher than what it would be with the gift and that could majorly impact in negative ways. One of the donors having dementia means opening up a can of worms, so on balance I would say to OP use your own money for the deposit and look for lenders that let you overpay more than 10%.

Dementia isn’t an automatic bar for driving.

I think it should be, but it isn’t.

Thank you everyone.

I think I will contact my mortgage broker tomorrow about the possibility of changing to a different mortgage with a lower deposit and overpay by as much as I can each year until the gift is used up. That seems to be the path of least resistance here.

I really appreciate all the advice.

Why not just a passport? It would arrive within the week

This won’t work. They need to provide actual evidence - when I provided £5K I had to show exactly where than money had been for the previous 12 months.

the issue is with the dementia and no POA.

no its not but being at the level of being so badly affected that you cannot retain conversations would be.

What a lovely thoughtful and helpful post

But he wouldnt actually need to speak with the solicitor personally. In any case, her mother is perfectly with her rights to make a gift anyway.

morally if she’s accepting the gift by way of overpayments, I’m not sure what the difference is.

She’s said he doesn’t