The letter must explain who is gifting the money, where the donor's funds are coming from and the relationship between the donor and the recipient. A gift letter for a mortgage is a legal, written statement your lender may require if you're gifted cash to buy a home.From my understanding, giving a gift to parents after they supply a gift and gift letter is fraud regardless of the funds' origins. The person who gives you the funds will be required to provide bank statements in addition to a gift letter to verify were the money originated. A gift letter is an important, formal, legal piece of documentation that can help explain that a (usually rather large) sum of money was gifted to you. A mortgage gift letter is a statement that assures your lender the money that came into your account is a gift and not a loan. There are no penalties, you would merely be making a gift to them. Here's a sample gift letter you can use to prove that the money is truly meant as an outright gift, with no expectation of repayment. There are no penalties, you would merely be making a gift to them. A gift letter is a piece of legal, written correspondence explicitly stating that money received from a friend or relative is a gift.