Londoner45

I am posting on behalf of a friend.

My friend is married (they are both British but have lived in the US for past 11 years) with 3 children a 14 year old (UK born with UK passport and green card), 12 year old (UK born with UK passport and green card), and 10 year old (born in US with UK and US passports/citizenship).

For various reasons they might need to move back to the UK at rather short notice this summer.

They will initially live with her mum, but she needs to start from scratch with 3 kids and she hasn't worked for around 15 years. It's not clear whether her husband will join them at this stage.

Who, if anyone, do they need to inform that they are coming back to the UK to live?

Will they be able to register with an NHS GP using her mothers address until they get settled somewhere?

Any other considerations? - obviously this is quite an upheaval for the kids and she will need to find a place to live, and get a job, but for now, what should her first steps be?

She will of course need to get them into schools, but until she knows where she is going to live that's a bit tricky, ideally she would like to stay in London as that is where she worked before and has contacts and that is where her mother and friends are, however her father lives in Devon and the cost of living will undoubtedly be cheaper, but then she doesn't have any work contacts there.

Any advice appreciated.

Thank you for reading.

fern747

Hi Londoner45! Welcome to the site!

Having moved to the UK from the US about 10 years ago I can tell you it's a fairly straight forward process.

Firstly (and they might be able to do this from abroad) they should set up a UK bank account if they don't already have one. This will help establish a credit line if they need to rent/buy a property.

If they don't have National Insurance numbers yet they will need to apply for those.

Signing up with the GP is very straight forward, but you would need to decided where you are moving to first as you then just sign up locally.

They bigger challenge will be enrolling their children into schools. In London it might be hard to find a place for them so it's worth researching this beforehand.

Whereabouts in the States are they moving from? I came from New York originally to study and I had only sorted my accommodation and school out before landing, which in retrospect, could have been planned better!

Hope this helps!
- Fernando

Londoner45

Thank you Fern747!

Pulaski

If they're all British with British passports they don't need to inform anyone - they can just show up at LHR with their passports. They don't even need to tell the immigration officer that this is a one-way journey. However they will need to complete a Transfer of Residence (ToR) form to accompany their household goods being shipped back to the UK so as to avoid being charged duty on their things.

Lion in Winter

If she can't find her NI number, she can recover it here.

https://www.gov.uk/lost-national-insurance-number

I've been in the US a lot longer than her, had no idea what my NI number was. They just posted it to me, and it didn't take long so she might want to get ahead on that then she will have that done before she lands back.

Londoner45

Thank you!

durham_lad

This is what I did for me and my wife before we moved back (we were away for 29 years).

Registering with a doctor was very easy, just walked into our local health centre and completed a form there and then.

Already having a UK bank account made things easy as well. Having an existing bank account meant getting a credit card was easy to get and begin to establish a credit record.

We also registered to vote (can do it online) as soon as we were back then sent off our old pink paper driving licenses for new photo ID licenses and they came back within a couple of weeks as we'll.

Lion in Winter

Did you manage to set up a UK bank account from the US? I know HSBC can do that, but I don't have the vast quantities of cash required to meet their standards.

durham_lad

When we left in 1987 we retained our Midland Bank account. In the intervening years Midland was purchased by HSBC.

Our son is planning to return to England in October and he has already opened an HSBC account without vast quantities of cash in the USA. Their website says he now should be able to open an account in England so I've told him to contact them. Maybe this is where they will ask for a large amount of cash?

Pulaski

I think the last thing HSBC is looking for these days is customers with large amounts of cash!

Lion in Winter

I could hold some of it for them

Pulaski

That's fine, until the FBI finds out.

Then when the owners of the money find out that the FBI has found out is when you find out that you have real problems!

Lion in Winter

Hmm. I think I must have read something incorrectly, or was maybe looking at setting up an international account which required the large sums mentioned in the Premier and Advance accounts here. So if I can open a normal checking account by internet only, since there are no branches in my state I don't think, and that would help get some UK credit, that would be good.

https://www.us.hsbc.com/1/2/home/per...cking-accounts

moneypenny20

Do you have a link to the section where they say he should be able (I note the word 'should') to open an account in England? I can't find anything.

brits1

HSBC Premier accounts are for people earning a certain amount of money (they then receive extra benefits from this account) if you are not earning a large amount then just open anyone of their other "normal" accounts they have on offer.