Selling HK Property From UK

[sspt41877]

Good evening,

I have a relative who is looking to sell a property in Hong Kong. She lives in the U.K. and is a U.K. tax payer. She has been advised by someone she knows that she needs to travel to Hong Kong in person to reactivate her currently dormant BOC bank account to allow the funds from the sale to be transferred into this account.

My question is, can she not just simply nominate her usual UK-based HSBC account to have the funds transferred into via the IBAN, rather than having to travel to HK in person, or are there rules/laws in place that prohibit this?

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

[drumbrake]

I don't think there are any laws against this. However, the initial deposit is usually paid directly between buyer and seller. While there are banks which allow free overseas transfers to the UK (e.g DBS), many don't so the owner might need to offer to pay any bank charges. It should be possible for the lawyer to do the international bank transfer. Who is providing the advice - the estate agent nor the lawyer?

[shri]

I don't see any reason why the initial deposit cannot be paid to the lawyers client account and held for the client. Also don't see a problem with the lawyer doing an overseas transfer.

Exchange rates might be an issue.

[sspt41877]

Thank you both for the replies and advice, much appreciated. This all sounds completely reasonable that the money from the sale could be deposited into the lawyers' client account and then transferred to a bank in the UK.

Drumbrake - the advice didn't come from the estate agent or lawyer, but a friend of a friend living in HK(!)

[mpbk]

Nothing to do with bank transfer. Seller needs to sign the final sales contract in person at the lawyer's office.

[shri]

Nothing to do with bank transfer. Seller needs to sign the final sales contract in person at the lawyer's office.

Power of attorney route?

[mpbk]

Power of attorney route?

She still needs to go HK to sign the PoA

[drumbrake]

I have signed PoAs before and have not been in the same country as the lawyer, although admittedly this was not in Hong Kong.

[shri]

She still needs to go HK to sign the PoA

From the EEA website

To determine whether a power of attorney is in order, three things have to be considered: (1) whether the power of attorney is valid and has been properly executed; (2) whether the attorney and the powers given are clearly defined; (3) the validity period of the power of attorney, or whether or not it has been revoked.

If it is executed outside Hong Kong, there are other formalities. If executed in a member state of the Hague Conventions, it has to be signed in the presence of a local notary public. If it is not signed in a member state of the Hague Conventions, it has to be authenticated after notarization at the Chinese Embassy there. If it is signed in mainland China, it has to be authenticated by the Chinese Foreign Ministry after notarization.

Finally, a power of attorney executed less than 12 months ago is deemed not to have been revoked. Otherwise, the purchaser should request the owner to furnish additional proof of his authority to act on behalf of the owner.

All the three parties to the transaction, the vendor, the purchaser and the agent, should have a basic knowledge of power of attorney mentioned above so that the transaction may proceed

43. Power of Attorney must

[bdw]

To get documents notarized and authenticated in UK will probably cost you more than an airfare to HK. It could be for example 100 pound per page. You also can't do in one place, need to get notarized first, then authenticated by a government.

Also if you allow a lawyer to transfer funds to your UK bank account using regular bank FX rates, you will lose many multiples of an airfare cost compared to using the 'best' exchange rate from platforms such as IB.

So yeah you can probably do it from UK and don't "need" to travel to HK, but would probably be recommended to go and save you a heap of time, money and stress.