Hi all!
I'm considering buying a flat sometime next year, so 18 months in the future and I'm trying to get my affairs in order. I'm considering a flat around £300k.
My questions is regarding the Anti-Money Laundering procedure that my future solicitor and bank will carry out. From my research, if I have money for a deposit, then it's their duty to identify the source of the money to ensure it's not Money Laundering.
My current situation is that I have around £30k in my investment account which was accumulated slowly month after month over the past decade. I can show the transactions for my salaries and from my current account to investment account so that should be fully traceable.
My concern is regarding a cash gift I have received from my granma and parents in a non-EU country. The cash, around £50k, is in an investment account in my name. my granma/parents do not live in the UK and so Inheritance Tax should not be an issue.
I'm having cold sweats thinking about explaining to a solicitor about the source of those funds. Obviously, all of it comes from legal, hard work from my family but any monies from Non-EU/USA/Japan is considered high risk due to less strict banking rules and I'd really like to avoid having to even mention another country or cash gift to my solicitor.
Getting statements from abroad, getting them translated, getting my parents to prove the source of their funds all sounds like a really big nightmare.
I would like my application to be a boring and uncomplicated as possible and I'm considering the following options:
A) Get a mortgage using my £30k deposit. Then make monthly transfer from abroad and use it to overpay mortgage.
B) Make transfers from abroad now so by the time I apply for a mortgage next year, the money would have been sitting in my account for over 12 months and it will look less like a "cash gift to fund property purchase". It may raise less questions if I transferred money from my account abroad to my account here such a long time ago.
C) Get my parents to pay for my Amex credit card. My dad worked in the UK some time ago and has a bank account here. He could transfer the money from his account abroad to his account here and then pay my Amex. This way there is no foreign money coming into my current account, it's fully traceable from Dad Abroad to Dad UK. This way he is paying my bills and it doesn't look like he is giving me money for a house purchase - and I save my money obvs. Surely, it is a fairly ok scenario to be daddy dependant to pay your card for a while, no?
Please let me know if you have any opinion or insight, I'm not trying to dogde any legal obligations, I just want to get my situation in order so there are as few as possible red flags and complications.
Thanks!