When you go to buy a house, you need to make sure that you have all of the relevant paperwork that will be required throughout the process. The first thing that you will need is of course the funding to buy the property in the first place, and for most people, this means that you will need to go to a mortgage lender and apply for a mortgage.
Depending on your income and personal circumstances, the lender will agree how much they are willing to lend you and then you will have what is known as an agreement in principle – this is an offer of a mortgage of a certain amount and how much you will need to pay back.
Once you have this, you can go looking for your new property. It is likely that an estate agent will ask you what your situation is and also to provide proof of funding. This is partly to make sure that you do have a serious interest in buying the property, and also to ensure that you are not money laundering.
There are many checks in place that are done to prevent criminal activity such as money laundering, as investing in property is attractive to money launderers who want to clean their dirty money. As well as the fact that you will need to provide proof of where you are getting the money to buy the property from, an AML identity check will also be required to confirm your name and address are correct.
