Buying A Houe With Cash

[flipnflap]

if someone offers to buy your house entirely in cash, how wary should you be and why?

[Baldric]

Slight change of scenario, last car I bought, I offered £2500 cash deposit (I'd just been paid for some work I'd done) they could only accept £1000, due to regulations.

[ubasses]

If the buyer felt confident enough they could do their own conveyancing, but if they make any errors in searches etc they would not have any come back. Standard forms can be obtained from the land registry to do this. They can appoint their own surveyor or take the risk.
Going back to Murraymints comments about not being an international criminal, her Bank would either have been confident on where her funds had come from or, behind the scenes would have treated her with the suspicion of being a criminal and would have raised a money laundering report to their specialist department, they would then have made the decision on whether to pass it on to the appropriate authorities or not.

[FredPuli43]

Hammerman, you can nearly do that. When you buy a house at auction, the auctioneer requires you to fill in and sign a form. All that does is describe the property, the amount paid, and the parties to the sale. That's a 'memorandum of sale', constituting a deed, and the parties are legally bound by it; you can't escape. You are deemed to have cognizance of all material matters. Bad luck if it turns out to be falling down or have people with rights of way through the garage.

This used to be governed by the Law of Property Act 1925 s40 but is now under the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions ) Act 1989 which in truth, replicates it. And it applies to private sales. If the document is in due form for a deed, duly witnessed, it makes an enforceable contract for the sale. Of course, this may not be simple in the end because the Land Registry will require the land to be registered if it isn't already and that may mean work.

Under s40 (above) my late father bought a whole farm from a farmer who didn't like using lawyers. They found a piece of paper and recorded the transaction as above, the money was handed over, and my father had got a farm. Naturally, he took the bit of paper to his solicitor, who was horrified, but the whole sale went through.

[DTCwordfan]

She didn't get charged but there was extensive questioning, more about the buyers as it was thought to be drug-money laundering, there having been a ring with a number of local 75 year olds running it! (Not down here in Cornwall.....)

[Peter Pedant]

Freddie - glad your Dad saw a solicitor about something hur hur hur
(that was a comment on 'wills' by the way)

I am doing a cash sale - age - I cant get a mortgage
and the first thing any official of any org says is.... data protection.
No ..... they say Money Laundering.

I think X org have to pay, if they fall foul of the relevant legislation.

The other thing is none of the officials want to process the money - I suspect because once I hand over the moolah they have to pay interest.

Other than that - the only wariness should be - 'do you have the money'
But dont worry about that ! The officials are particularly interested in getting their hot little sticky hands on my bank statements. I of course am less interested in showing any Mrs Mopp down the road my private bank statements.