Paying my solicitor

[Woofer18]

Hello I received a house from an inheritance. This has been sold, and I now have the money. I am going to buy a house. It will be the first time that I have bought a house, and I will be a cash buyer.

I saw in the news a case about a woman buying a house. She was a cash buyer. Her solicitor's email got hacked, and fraudsters sent her emails from her solicitor's account- telling her to send the money to a bank account. She lost about 100,000 pounds.

This is the biggest amount of money that I will ever send by bank transfer. It seems so scary( and a bad way to do it) to send a huge amouny of money by bank transfer to a solicitor's account.

How can I protect myself? Can I take insurance out on this? Can I send money in stages? What is the safest way to send the money to my solicitor?

What have other cash buyers on here done?

You will send the deposit first when you part exchange. If you have additional worries then when the solicitor sends you their account details call them and cross check them, ask if you can send a tiny part payment first

It's about making sure you have the correct details to send the money to.

So go in person to the solicitor and ask for them. Or ask for a letter to be sent out.

We never send out our bank account details via email.

So an email with the firm bank details is where the danger lies.

So long as you are confident you have received the correct ones and then go into your bank to make the payment using those all should be good. The bank can also check they match as the firm details.

I agree, send them £10 or less first. Phone them or visit them in the office to confirm receipt of the £10 and then arrange transfer the rest. You will need to set it up through the back anyway as you can't generally move more than 10 grand using online banking.

Call to confirm the details over the phone, or ask if you can come into the office to get them on paper.

You could also send a "test payment" of a small amount (e.g. £5) and get them to confirm receipt before sending a larger sum, so you know you definitely have the correct details

I recently purchased a house for cash and collected the banking details from the solicitor’s office. I needed to be at the bank to make the transaction and the bank employee went through a series of questions with me eg has anyone from the solicitor’s office contacted you to pay money into a different account etc before the money could be transferred.

I work in a law firm and we have to check payment instructions by a second method. So if someone emails bank details we phone to check (using a phone number from something other than the email footer of the email). Having been caught out once with house repairs we also do the same in our personal lives.

Our solicitor’s sent us their details via a letter which was also available online through their secure portal. You shouldn’t get the details from an email, and if you do ask (by phone) for them to be sent another way.

You go to the bank and they transfer to money which gives you some protection
Or get a bankers draft
Or write a cheque

There are other ways than an online transfer

A recent payment I needed to make I rang the company with my card details and let them process the payment - as they request the money - rather than me sending it to the wrong account by mistake

We paid cash for this house my OH contacted the bank about a week before completion and arranged a bankers draft then took it to the solicitors in person to pay for the house that made sure the money coming out of his bank account went straight there

Thanks. A bank draft sounds like the best idea. I will bring it into the solicitor, and get them to give me a receipt.