The Proceeds Seller: Six Figures Cleared and No Plan

Some of the clearest referral moments in conveyancing are on the sale side, not the purchase side. A downsizer, an estate selling a family home, someone realising equity after decades: the completion statement shows a substantial balance about to reach their account. You are the professional who calculated it and sent it.

For a lot of these clients, a six-figure sum is the largest amount of money they have ever held in cash at one time. They have spent months focused on the sale itself. Very few have thought about what happens the day after the funds arrive. The proceeds sit in a current account while they work out what, if anything, to do.

You are not the person who tells them what to do with it. You are the person who can see, from the file, that a regulated conversation would clearly help, and who can introduce them to vetted, regulated advice firms.

The risk here is not dramatic. It is inertia. Money that lands without a plan tends to stay where it lands, doing nothing in particular, sometimes for years. That is a decision by default, and it is rarely the decision the client would make if someone prompted them to think.

• Downsizers releasing equity for later life
• Beneficiaries selling an inherited property
• Owners exiting a buy-to-let or second home
• Anyone whose sale clears far more than their onward costs

Each of these clients has just been handed a genuine planning question. You do not answer it. You do not comment on what they should hold, how they should hold it, or what any option might return. You simply recognise that a large, unplanned sum has appeared as a direct result of the transaction you handled.

The wording stays firmly in introducer territory. You can note that a sale of this size often leaves clients wondering what to do with the proceeds, that you are not able to advise on that yourself, and that you work with vetted, regulated advice firms who can. With the client's consent, you pass their details on.

That is the entire interaction. You are not recommending an investment, a product, or a strategy. You are not suggesting the money should be moved at all. You must never imply a promised return, growth, or a free of risk outcome, because you are not the adviser and no such promises are yours to make.

The value to the client is that someone they already trust, at the exact moment the money appears, points them to a regulated firm before inertia sets in. Most sellers have simply never been asked the question.

Both the SRA and the CLC permit referral arrangements where they are disclosed to the client, including the fact that a referral fee may be paid. The proceeds-of-sale referral is no different from any other: a short, honest disclosure at the point of introduction keeps you compliant and keeps the client informed.

Because you never touch the advice, you never touch the regulated activity. The line between introducing and advising is the line between a permitted referral and something you should not be doing, and on this file it is easy to hold: you mention that a conversation could help and hand over a warm introduction.

The member share of the referral fee, generally in the 60 to 70 percent band, follows from making the introduction. The professional justification is that you have spotted a real and time-sensitive need created by the sale.

As with any good referral, the strength is consistency. On sales that clear a meaningful surplus, the same short line gets offered every time. Not a judgement about who looks wealthy, not a guess about who might be interested, but a routine observation on files where the completion statement shows a large balance going out to the client.

Sellers are often overlooked in referral thinking because the attention naturally goes to buyers taking on mortgages. Yet the seller with cleared proceeds and no plan is one of the most relevant introductions you can make, precisely because the money is real, present and unallocated.

You calculated the figure and released the funds. Point the client, once, to a vetted regulated firm who can help them decide what happens next. One observation, one disclosure, one warm hand-off.