Buyer who is a foreign citizen - any pitfalls with that?

[CatAndHisKit]

I had an offer from a cash buyer who is a foreign citizen. I already have a thread about timeframe for cash buyer in general but this is a specific point.

My current buyer is messing around changing his story and now it will b very slow, so I would only switch to someone who can move quickly. Ideally two months in total as they are cash. We might be able to buy searches from existing buyer.

I now wonder if the legal process for foreign buyers is much slower as I understand they'd need a money-laundering check, and possibly bank transfers are not straight-forward? He's got family living here already an solicitor will be UK-based of course, but buyer himself is in the Middle East.
Anyone had experience with this, or maybe a lawyer can advise? TIA

Hi
We have literally just gone through this process offer accepted in July and we completed last week.
The goalpost moved weekly, we were selling an empty rental property so no chain involved.
Each week was a new issue, we were told they were a cash buyer this changed a few months in and were then told they were now obtaining a small mortgage. They were an investor living in Singapore and were a Muslim family which required a mortgage from a specific bank. We later found out they had a UK limited company that the house was being brought through. We were notified that the mortgage offer came through in January however the bank then had their own solicitor become involved which led to further queries that we had already answered. Our solicitor was having to communicate with the estate agent and now two solicitors.
We feel that the initially being told it was a cash buyer it was all going to be so quick however that really wasn't the case. We have brought and sold numerous properties and this literally was so stressful.
Once we were a few months in it became a weekly battle of whether we should pull out but knew the stamp duty holiday was looming so worried about finding another buyer.
If I could go back to July I would never had accepted that offer, however hope ours was just really bad luck and that yours will be much more straight forward.

We have to be so careful with money laundering checks for any buyer these days, checking funds from overseas shouldn’t be a problem. It might take a bit longer if proof of funds has to be translated from another language.

We were cash buyers from the Middle East and everything went very smoothly for both us and the seller.

However, a few years later we paid a huge bill, a few hundred thousand, for a medical type kind of service and the money was blocked in the account of the person receiving it. We eventually had to prove how we had earned the money and once the bank saw it was genuine the money was released. It didn’t take long - about 10 days.

jcollins well I'm having a similar stressful sale with the UK-based buyer - same thing with offering as a cash buyer, then being slow to start with but I thought still will be quicker than any mortgage - them lo and behold, three months later he needs a mortgage! and just a small one. For the pasy month he's not dome anything and feeding lies - obvs it's long wait to get approved for mortgage I assume, but he is not saying that clearly.
Hence I;m considering this new one.

He's now saying he'll transfer the money to his UK relatives - but can this work if he is the official buyer? Otherwise thy sound very keen and more to the point, honest!

Minnie hopefully it's not much longer for overseas ones.

Anne may I ask if thos was recent? Did you have a UK based solicitor, and how long did it take overall?

The lawyers and agents must go through the money laundering process and if legitimate it shouldn't be any harder than a UK buyer. But there can be issues with any buyer no matter where they are from.

We've just done this, cash buyer from Hong Kong. Best transaction we've ever done, completed in 4.5 weeks!

You can transfer money from abroad very quickly now - DH is French and also I've used Transferwise and mine converts same day, his I think take 24 hours but certainly not a reason to be concerned about.

I'm not sure about him transfering to relatives, that I would check with solicitors but may cause issues if he is the buyer better to keep in his name. All buyers get checked for money laundering, and as long as there's proof its legitimate money (so from earnings, previous house sale, inheritance etc) it shouldn't cause an issue. That's normally done at the start so you should know pretty quickly if there's an issue with that.

Transferring the money to UK relatives could be a mistake that slows everything down and makes it all more complicated. If the funds are in someone else's name other than the buyer then they become a party to the transaction too, and that's a whole new can of worms.

I wouldn't deal with a cash buyer (they almost never are) or a non UK buyer- too much hassle, shifting ground, and too slow all round.

There's nothing inherently slower or quicker really about any buyer but various factors which could cause hitches.

If the overseas buyer is already a client of the UK lawyer he/she is using then that's good. If not, then the onboarding process (money-laundering/ID checks) could take longer.

The idea of the buyer sending money to his solicitor via a relative is crazy and will invariably cause problems. No reason why the buyer can't send it direct though some countries (China is one) tend to have limits on the amount of currency which can be sent out of the country in one go.

You may feel that an overseas buyer is less invested in buying "your" house as opposed to "a" house - though you can literally never tell who will end up coming good and completing and who won't. As you've seen, a cash buyer might then need a mortgage after all; a chain-free buyer may suddenly want to bolt on a related transaction; someone with all their paperwork in order might lose their job and have to withdraw; a couple may split up....................

Before you ditch your current buyer, have you checked how long it's currently taking to do searches? If you want to know, pm me with where you are and I'll look it up - we were sent a handy list yesterday! Sometimes if buyers have to withdraw they offer the searches to a new buyer but if you pull out, I'd imagine the first buyer wouldn't want to try and do you a favour.

Unfortunately there are so many uncertainties that it's really hard to gauge what to do. If you really feel that the current buyer will mess you around, can you set a deadline? That might be better than pulling the papers as you don't want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.