My daughter is currently in the process of buying her first house.
Now, unless they are particularly wealthy or well paid, it’s not easy for most youngsters to get on to the housing ladder, these days, so – as a doting parent – I want to help out, of course.
To that end, I have gifted her a sum of money to pay off her car loan and to put down a deposit.
As I say, the sort of thing that doting parents do, if they can.
I thought that doing such a thing would be simple: just transfer the money over. But no: I now have to prove that I am not money laundering!
Yes, you read that right: I now need to prove that I’m not a money launderer!
The only time I have ever laundered money, was that time I put my jeans in the wash and forgot that there was twenty quid in the pocket.
Anyway, to prove I’m not part of a major crime ring, I was asked by her mortgage provider to supply several month’s worth of bank statements to show that the money was in my account before I gifted it to my daughter. This, I did and I thought that would be the end of it. But, no. I have returned from holiday to find that I now need to prove that the statements that I sent off, are indeed mine.
So, I have been referred to a company that specialises in ID checks. I have to provide them with ‘biometric data’ (a photo of me); scans of my passport, driving licence and utility bills (not so easy, since I went paperless several years ago). I also have to wet sign and scan in several documents stating that the money is my own and that it hasn’t come to me via any criminal means.
Jeez, all I wanted to do was help my little girl out.
Everything would be so much simpler if it wasn’t for other people. I’ve had to go through similar chains of bureaucratic nonsense for various money transfers to my offspring. And yet, when I came into an amount of money and paid off the mortgage with it, I just could. Bonkers rules.
It IS bonkers.
That said, for them to go into this much detail (and bureaucratic nonsense), money laundering must be quite a big issue.
🙂 I am yet to do this one ” I put my jeans in the wash and forgot that there was twenty quid in the pocket” everything is too far away in the future for me. See you doing the blogathon next year.. It has been awesome
Thanks Rajesh… though I think ‘awesome’ is pushing it somewhat 🙂
A few years ago we gave a hefty sum to our son and his Slovenian girlfriend ( now wife) to help with a house deposit. We had lots of hoops to jump through I seem to remember, but can you imagine what her father, (who was also giving to the cause), had to do to give money from abroad!!
Ps Only just caught up with this last post as we were waiting 4 days for a new router…….life is difficult and boring without wifi, especially when your phone data is all used and can’t get online to boost it!
Well, I only finished it all yesterday. Thrice I had to ring them up: “Which bank account is it you want access to?”, “I’ve already told you I’m retired, so how can I send you six month’s worth of payslips?”, “Which of these boxes should I tick… neither of them apply?”.
It took over an hour to jump through all the hoops and hurdles, but we got there in the end.
I can imagine doing it from abroad probably involved questions from Interpol 🙂
It’s amazing just how dependent we are on broadband nowadays. It’s as essential as gas and electric for most of us, now.