Danmar
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Pensions, and dividends. Interest is immaterial and cap gains may not be repeated. Hardly ever have to do this. Had to show we had enough cash to buy our last house in Arizona.
Was this early in the process Alan? It seems like if you had already made an offer and it was accepted, you could just give them a check in lieu of proving you'd be able to give them a check later. Or was it a case where the seller still had some loops to jump through and you didn't want to give them a check until seller completed their to-do's?
Just make up a number, they won't check.
We are currently in the process of buying a house, for cash, and had to produce current brokerage statements to prove we had the funds to buy the house. I also provided pension statements to show that we also had other income streams.
Was this early in the process Alan? It seems like if you had already made an offer and it was accepted, you could just give them a check in lieu of proving you'd be able to give them a check later. Or was it a case where the seller still had some loops to jump through and you didn't want to give them a check until seller completed their to-do's?
It's a short chain. The seller has to buy a house and the house he is buying has an occupant who is moving to another city to be near his son. ( I think he is about 90 and will be moving in with his son while he finds somewhere else).
We've had a survey done and our lawyer has now completed searches on the property we are buying, has received some documents on construction that was done and is waiting on an electrical safety certificate following replacement of a fuse/breaker box. I assume they are having similar searches and surveys done on the property they are buying.
The goal is exchange of contracts first week of January followed by closing on January 18th. 10% deposit required on exchange of contracts, otherwise a copy of brokerage and bank statements was sufficient to assure ability to pay.
We've had a survey done and our lawyer has now completed searches on the property we are buying
We've bought eight homes - five of them for cash in several states, and never had to prove we had the funds with brokerage/bank statements. Just showed up with a cashiers check at the closings. Nothing more than earnest money upfront (believe all were under $10k earnest), and no income verification except for mortgages on the three that weren't all cash purchases. All were typical purchases with realtors on both sides and lawyers handling closings.
Wow! It just occurred to me that title searches must be a nightmare in Europe. They take long enough in this country where they only have to go back a couple of centuries or so, but OMG how deep do they search where you live?
Financial regulations in the U.K. Must be different than in the USA, perhaps when it comes to money laundering the U.K. is more careful as to determining the source of the money. Anyway, it was easy to produce statements to show the existence and source of the money and no deposit money is required to be paid prior to exchange of contracts which is only about 2 weeks prior to closing when the money is actually handed over. (This is done electronically, you never actually meet up together on the day holding checks or cash). When we sold our house in the USA we were amazed to walk away with a cashiers check worth almost a quarter of a million dollars. A cashiers check is as good as cash I think so we were very nervous until we got to our bank to deposit it.
Remember also that we have been out of the country for 29 years and therefore have no credit score or other U.K. financial history.
Showing up with a cashier's check on the day of closing is preferable to wiring the funds to a title company beforehand - especially when dealing with new home builders (our 5 cash purchases). It gives you the opportunity to stop the closing if necessary, or to negotiate on unfinished items discovered at the final walk-through. Have had things not go smoothly at closings with several builders, and negotiated withholding of funds (by title company) until items were completed. Gives builder incentive to return your calls so they can get you to sign off on work completed, and retrieve final payments from title company. I also want to see a title company check for the agreed upon amount before signing off on my property.
In the UK you don't exchange contracts until you are satisfied everything has been completed to your satisfaction. I can't imagine going into closing day with the possibility of work still outstanding. Usually mortgages are involved and the bank wants a full sign-off before contracts are exchanged and a deposit put down, then there is a couple of weeks for monies to be received by the law firms prior to closing day.
Different systems, even within the UK. When we moved to Scotland and had a house to sell in England and one to buy in Scotland we had to employ 2 law firms because the laws and house buying/selling processes are different, so English lawyers can't practice in Scotland and vise-versa.
A lot of maneuvering with all of these purchases, but never had to provide proof of funds or our net worth for any of them as previously mentioned. I thought you were in Europe, but wasn't sure. Can see where things are a little different given the difficulty of crossing country boundaries vs. U.S. state boundaries.
There ya go......... No need to make it more complicated than it is. I believe MichaelB's method would work well for most scenarios.
Doctors offices have no need for a social security number. Considering the employees of most offices and their rate of pay I consider them a significant risk for ID theft. Same with banks but they communicate with the IRS.