Just before exchange, your conveyancer will ask you to transfer the exchange deposit — conventionally 10% of the purchase price — into their client account. This is the single largest bank transfer most people have ever made, and it is also the single most targeted moment for payment fraud in the entire UK economy. This step exists mostly to make you paranoid in exactly the right way.
The deposit mechanics
The exchange deposit is the sum you forfeit if you default after exchange. Ten per cent is convention; if your total deposit is smaller (a 95% mortgage), your conveyancer can usually negotiate a reduced exchange deposit with the seller's side — raise it early, not exchange week. The money must be cleared funds in the client account before exchange, so check your bank's daily transfer limits and CHAPS options days ahead.
The fraud, precisely
Criminals compromise email chains (yours, or a firm's), watch for the deposit moment, then send a perfectly convincing email 'from your conveyancer' announcing changed bank details. The money goes to the criminals' account and is gone within hours. The defence is absolute and simple: conveyancers essentially never change bank details mid-transaction, and you verify account details by phone — on the number from their letterhead or your own records, never one from the email — before sending anything.
The safe transfer ritual
Verify details by phone as above. Send £1 first. Phone again to confirm the £1 arrived. Send the balance. Phone to confirm receipt. Five extra minutes of ceremony against a six-figure irreversible loss is the best-priced insurance in this entire journey.
Your action list
Practical tips
- Tell your bank a large transfer is coming — unannounced six-figure transfers trigger fraud holds at the worst moment.
- Do the transfer in the morning, midweek: same-day problems get fixed by humans who are still at work.
What can go wrong
- An email announcing new bank details for your deposit is a scam until proven otherwise by a phone call you initiated — no exceptions, however plausible the email.
- Funds sent to a fraudster's account are usually unrecoverable within hours; there is no undo, which is why the ritual is not optional.
- PropertySquares provides education, not financial or legal advice. Verify current rules and obtain advice for your circumstances before acting.