Being British isn’t enough to buy a home in Britain, a property law firm has warned.
Tatiana Sharposhnikova, Chief Executive of Sharpwell Property Law, claims that discrimination is rife in the British property market.
A mere whiff of a foreign sounding name – regardless if the buyer is foreign or not – is enough to turn lenders off, she suggests.
Foreign-sounding name
She says: “We have seen cases where nothing more than a foreign-sounding name was enough to invite extra scrutiny, delay, or an outright refusal to proceed, because it was easier to walk away than to get to truly understand the client.
“This is discrimination, whether or not it is labelled as such.
“Our clients are professionals, taxpayers, and long-standing UK residents, some of whom have lived and worked here for decades. Many have been granted the permanent right to live and work here, and yet they find themselves unable to achieve the most basic right of owning a home.”
We have seen cases where nothing more than a foreign-sounding name was enough to invite extra scrutiny, delay, or an outright refusal to proceed.”
She continues: “We have a situation where being British isn’t enough to buy a house in Britain – where citizenship and residency count for nothing if a name, a family connection, or a bank transfer looks wrong on paper.
“Robust checks matter and no-one is arguing otherwise. But a system that cannot distinguish between a family gift and a genuine red flag is failing to manage real risk while shutting genuine people out.
“The real costs are felt right through the chain: weeks of delay, collapsed chains, and sometimes outright transaction failure – all of which contribute to a housing market under strain.”
Legal rights
She explains that she is acting for a growing number of British residents and citizens – people with every legal right to live, work, and buy property in this country – whose purchases are financed in part by family abroad.
This might be a parent helping their child onto the property ladder, a sibling contributing to a deposit, or inherited funds from overseas relatives.
“None of this is unusual,” she says. “But any of these circumstances can instantly trigger the same scrutiny normally reserved for the highest-risk transactions.
“That is where the real problem lies.
“Due diligence exists to manage genuine risk, not to penalise ordinary financial support between family members. Yet, in practice, we see banks and lenders raising red flags at the mere mention of money crossing a border.”
