TiaMaria57

Hi All,
I am looking for some advice please and appreciate your time taking reading this.

My husband and I are retiring to the UK after been in the US for 25 years. We are both have duel citizenship. We have only one child and she works in Europe and we miss seeing her hence our decision to move back.

My question is when we sell our US house, which will be sold before we actually return to the UK, is it wise to transfer the proceeds to the UK before we leave the US or should we wait until after we arrive back? Or can we wire some of the funds before we leave and some after leaving the US? And would either way have an effect on tax?

Also, which is the best method for transferring a large sum, given the rip off charged by the big banks on the currency rate? Transfer Wise and OFX etc., only permit small sums at a time.

We intend to use some of the funds to purchase a property in the UK after we return.
Thank you in advance for any advice you can give me.

mrken30

Do you have existing bank accounts in the UK?
Will you need all the money once you get to the UK? For example do you intend to buy a house in the UK with the funds?
Do you have other income streams in the UK?

I used torfx when moving my money 10 years ago. I think they still charge reasonable rates. One option with a broker like torfx is you can lock the rate for up to a year. This may be something you want to do if you have not sold your house yet and want to take advantage on the low exchange rate.

Pulaski

From a fax perspective, it makes no difference which way and when you choose to transfer it.

Be sure to tell your bank in the UK what you are doing and where the money came from (sale of your home, in the US), as banks are required to look out for large and unexpected transactions, and there are less likely to be concerns if you have voluntarily provided the information.

TiaMaria57

Thank you for the forex info. I shall certainly look into the idea of locking a rate in. We won’t need the house sale proceeds all at once. We have other funds besides the house money which will will also have to move at some point.

TiaMaria57

Thanks for this tip. I’d heard of this before but forgotten about it. Thanks for reminding me.

spouse of scouse

I can only go by my own experience with this, which is transferring large sums from Australia to the UK, so it may or may not be relevant!

Definitely go with a reputable foreign exchange broker to avoid the rip off bank fees. I've used OFX a number of times and am very happy with them. Their rates are very close to the published exchange rate, and if you're transferring a large sum and call them they'll usually give you an even better rate.

The disclosure re where the funds came from and what they'll be used for was mandatory. Re fees - anything over a certain amount (just AU$10,000 in Australia) is free of fees.

Pulaski

Are you referring to the memo in the wire/funds transfer? ..... Yes, that is usually considered to be mandatory.

I was taking about telling the receiving bank independently, ahead of them receiving the funds. Banks keep an electronic file of notes for each customer, and you need, so far as you are able, to ensure that your explanation gets into that file ahead of the funds arriving, so the bank knows what funds are being received.

TiaMaria57

Thank you for all your advice. We have already used OFX and have an account with them but I was under the impression (wrongly by the sounds of it) that we could only move up to $10k at a time. Now I know better thanks to you! We have no problem disclosing where the funds came from or where it’s going and why so that’s not a problem. I just didn’t know these forex co’s did large sums like that.

It also sounds from answers above that we can move money before and after our move to UK with no tax issues.

I like your tip about calling them for an even better rate. I was thinking of asking our US bank about that but I’m sure they’d still rip us off. I don’t like Transfer Wise due to their web page asking us to log in (through their website) to our bank and having to fill in our bank password in on their platform. I was shaken by that and wouldn’t continue with the transaction, hence using OFX instead. Thanks for all your help.

TiaMaria57

I gathered he meant this and think it’s a very wise idea to inform the receiving bank.

durham_lad

As mentioned above there are no tax implications in the UK if you sell your house before moving over then transfer the funds, which is what we did.

We have made lots of transfers of $10k at a time with Transferwise over the past 18 months and never told our receiving UK bank. I assume they can see the memo on the transfer as to where the funds are coming from.

For the big transfer (over $200k) when we actually bought our house in January this year we did a bank to bank transfer with HSBC and got the "dealing desk" rate. I spent a fair bit of time on the phone with the "large sum transfer" department who confirmed who I was and where the funds had originated from. (I told him from the sale of our US house).

spouse of scouse

Glad to have been of some help - we were all new at this once! Best of luck with the move

TiaMaria57

Thank you durham-lad for your helpful information. Hearing your experience helps those of us who have yet to go through this process.

TiaMaria57

Your right......we are all new to this at some point and it happens only once. People on this site truly want to help others for which I’m sure everyone is as grateful as I am that we found you fab guys and this site. I hope that when we get all this finished I can offer my insight to newbies who have yet to encounter these issues.