Wise did transfer the monies for our daughter’s house purchase directly to the lawyer’s bank account. I am familiar with how a house sale and purchase is done in the USA, having been through the process myself. In England it is done quite differently and the funds are transferred to the lawyer’s account about 7 days before the closing date and then, after verbal approval over the phone, the lawyer transfers the funds to the seller’s bank account. We went through this process ourselves in January 2017 while in Texas. We had rented a house in England the previous year and bought a house before traveling back to Texas to sell up and close out our rented apartment​​​​​, having already sold our house sometime earlier. From Texas we transferred the money to our lawyer’s and a week later, from the railway station in Manchester Airport received the call for us to transfer the funds to the seller. We then got on the train home and picked up the keys to the house that afternoon.

Wise does not do an international wire transfer directly to the bank you want to send money to. They maintain their own bank accounts in lots of different countries and the transfer of money goes from their UK bank to the UK bank you are sending money which is why only a sort code and account number is needed. Any international wire transfers occur in the background between Wise banks, invisible to oneself. If on a given day people in the UK want to send money to the USA totaling $500k and people in the USA want to send money to the UK totaling $450k then because Wise has banks in both countries they only need to international transfer the balance of $50k between their own banks.

These days I have a Wise “bank” account in USD with US routing number and my own account number and it behaves just like a regular bank account. I have that account linked to my Vanguard account so when I take distributions from my IRA it goes into my Wise account and I then use my Wise app to transfer that money to my UK HSBC checking account, and that process takes seconds to arrive in my UK account.

Thanks for the detailed background and information. Yes, this is exactly how I thought it works. I just need to contact OFX and see if they also maintain domestic banks for this purpose. I'm leaning probably not as they specialize in international transfers only, but I'll give them a call. The only concern I have in transferring directly to a lawyer's account is that the lawyer is on the up and up. A mistaken mistransfer or a dishonest lawyer seems a big risk unless there are safeguards there I'm not familiar with.

I had a Wise account years ago, but had to give them up and go to OFX instead. The issue was they would not transfer funds to a bank in Poland to a relative's account there. No reason given. With OFX no problem at all.

When using a lawyer in England you first need to check they are registered with the Law Society. All registered lawyers are required to have insured defined bank accounts, separate from their own business account where they hold client’s money destined for house purchases. Before making the big transfer you would first transfer a small sum to validate the account details so no chance of making a mistake when you transfer the big sum.

One more question if I could. Outside of the house purchase process, can you continue to use Wise as your local bank for GBP transactions for local needs as if your local bank? Or is it still necessary to get an account with a brick and mortar bank there (which seems fairly difficult for new arrivals).

Also, as FYI for others as interested, OFX only offers local bank services for businesses, not for personal accounts (which Wise does). But I did log into my previous Wise account and it seems to be working correctly. So that's the way to go (per your valuable additional information).

You can continue to use your Wise GBP in the UK while you look for other banks. Our daughter got herself a Wise debit card before arriving here and used it at ATMs to get cash and also to buy stuff with her debit card until she got a credit card. With your GBP Wise account you can also pay merchants and other folks using direct bank to bank payment which is extremely common here these days.