I’m looking for information about the process of buying a property in the UK and how one can pay for it. If anyone has been through this process I’d be grateful for your experience, thanks. If you prefer, by all means PM me.
Our background: We sold a flat in the UK at the end of 2024 and the money from the sale went into our UK NatWest a/c.
We have now seen a flat we like in the UK and we have made an offer. OH went into a local NatWest branch to discuss with them how we could pay for the purchase. He was told that the purchase would require a CHAPS payment and that only way he could do it would be by being in the UK at the time and by going into a NatWest branch to do the transaction.
Yet I have seen elsewhere an online bank implying CHAPS payments can be done online. OH did say the person in the NatWest branch seemed somewhat uncertain.
Obviously if the only way he can do it is by being in the UK and physically in the branch, that is what he will do.
I’d welcome thoughts from anyone with experience of this. Thanks.
There is a former member of SF who hasn’t been on for a while but has recently done what you are planning on doing. I shall ask him what he did and get back to you asap.
When we bought a house for my son recently I just transferred funds out of my current account - not sure why it would need CHAPS and a visit to the branch?
100% correct, we had to do that in 2023 when we bought our new UK home (our account is with Lloyds). Total farce, OH flew back and spent all of five minutes in the branch proving ID and that was it.
Isn’t it your conveyancing solicitor that makes the CHAPS payment on completion, not you the buyer? You can pay your solicitor in advance by normal online bank transfer (via BACS) which will likely need multiple transfers due to your bank’s daily transfer limits (our bank’s is £25k). I’d have a chat with your solicitor for full info.
The scenario is not quite the same as some of you have experienced. Because we live in France, NatWest slaps a limit on what we can withdraw from our UK a/c per week - enough to pay the solicitor’s bills, but not pay for the flat in one hit - hence the need to use the CHAPS system. (@billybutcher , surely you are in the UK?) Old fashioned cheque no good for same reason.
Multiple payments into a solicitor’s a/c is a possibility - @MrC your limit per day is WAY more than we’re getting - that would be a week’s worth for us, and they upped it when we complained!
Thanks to @JaneJones , @tim17 for confirming that a CHAPS payment has to be in person. @AngelaR don’t worry if you can’t get an answer. OH is trying to get through to a human being at NatWest’s Crawley branch! He’ll step off the plane, get a taxi to the branch and get the next flight back. Delighted to say our offer has been accepted.
For a same day payment, you have until 2.59pm to arrange the payment in branch, or 3:15pm when faxed to the payment centre ( please fax to 0845 300 3390 if in the UK or +44 161 755 7272 if abroad, including RoI)
OH getting the same message from the Crawley branch right now.
This is what we have been reassured we can do - needless to say OH delighted to find he doesn’t have to fly back again. Hope this is useful info for anyone in the future buying a property in the UK while based in France.
Ah the low NatWest daily limit could be a show-stopper. Our bank allows us to change the daily transfer limit up to £25k presumably for events like this.
Interesting…NatWest have confirmed in writing to me that we can withdraw £50,000 a day (!) every day, and said this is exactly what some people do when buying property, ie to enable multiple transfers to their solicitor. I was quite surprised at the high amount, particularly as we only keep a nominal amount in the account (<£500) purely to meet the very occasional trip to the UK to buy Marmite and other of life’s essentials…
I confess I’ve never asked NW what sort of banking applies to our basic current account. However, having now gone into the NW app, it says it’s ‘Premier Banking’ whatever that actually means in practice…
I will definitely look at (what I had assumed was) my very basic NW current account with grudging new respect - after what Sue and Jane have told me about its capabilities! Like Jane, I have ended up, unintentionally, with a Premier account, first opened as a 13 year old inmate of one of the UK’s more notorious educational establishments…
Remember the ad campaign, “Spain is different” ? So it is. Maybe, was.
When I bought my flat it was on the condition that €15k was in folding. How the seller and his abogado dealt with that was not my biz. “Es normal”.
I was staggered at how easy it was to draw €15k in notes. I went into my bank, told them what I wanted and - no questions asked - was told to come back 3 days later.
I returned and was handed a brown envelope. Still no questions asked.
At the conveyance there seemed to be ESP at work because at certain point the notario suddenly remembered he had something to do in another office and left the room. My abocada nudged me …
"Que? Oh! Ah! Si… " and the brown envelope crossed the table.
The seller and his estage agent split the wad and started counting it. Every so often the agent slipped a note down south.
The notario returned and the conveyance completed.
When I sold, after the conveyance, which did not involve brown envelopes, my abogada said we would now go to a bank where I would draw her fees - in cash. She explained to a cashier that I needed to be able to draw €1500 from an atm. This was double her usual fee because there had been a possible wrinkle about CGT, which never arose but still…
Thie atm was setup and it duly churned out the dosh.
She put this in her handbag and, with a peck on my cheek, announced she was now going off to buy shoes …
