Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Hi - hopefully some Abbey (or former Abbey) customers may be able to advise on this one. We have been in Oz since October and have not yet advised the Abbey (officially) that we are now in Oz. To cut a long story short, we had read about some of the horror stories on here re troubles with banks and relocating. We advised our local branch re our situation and were advised to add our brother to our signatories list in the event that anything required signatures - this was then rejected as we already had a joint account an no further signatories could be added. We then ended up just advising of our brother's address as a forwarding/current address.

Ideally, we would like to advise Abbey of our address here as we still have our £Stg house monies sitting in our Esaver account pending exchange rates so however long that may be!!!! Also just to ensure that we are not taxed in the UK as we still need to sort that one out with the HMRC.

We have noticed that their online contact system advises of 'we have moved overseas'.

Can anyone advise that has gone through this with the Abbey - as we don't want to advise them only to put ourselves in a more akward position.

Many thanks!!

Nina & Peter ;)

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Whats the difference between Abbey and other UK banks? Has there been a particular problem with Abbey? We still have our UK account with HSBC and have never have any problems with living overseas?

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Whether the bank deducts tax from your bank interest has nothing to do with your address, but everything to do with lodging form R85.

Unless you lodge form R85 with your bank, they have to deduct tax from your interest.

You can download the form here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/r85.pdf

You need to fill in a form for each bank account (unless you have up to two accounts at the same branch and with the same sort code). Also each account holder needs to complete a form.

Very easy to do: fill in the forms; then post them to Abbey. They will then stop deducting tax from your interest. Also, Abbey will refund any tax they've deducted since 6 April 2008.

Gina

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Hi - Many thanks - have all the HRMC forms just not posted them yet (the R85 is already in place but our house monies will take us over the interest threshold).

Just really wanted to check that the Abbey will let us get on with things without needing any signatures (eg withdrawing large amounts of monies/all of our money from our Esaver (internet) account when the exchange rate has improved, send us statements, replacement cards etc.

Many thanks
Nina

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

The problem you may have is that most banks impose limits for moving money via phone or internet. Therefore to move anything more than about £5,000 they will want to see you in person. They should allow you to transfer money
via a signed letter but this usually requires you to move money on a certain date and to a certain account. To make arrangements you usually need 2 weeks notice, which obviously restricts your ability to react to the moving exchange rate.

Also the R85 form is not accepted by some banks - Barclays have told me that they do not provide this service. Joy.

Good luck.

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

I'd ask to speak to the manager! Form R85 isn't a service, or optional extra!

Gina

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Ah, but it is a service and an optional extra. Banks are under no obligation to pay you gross. To pay you gross they need to store a completed Form R85, make sure the signatures match up, provide it to the Inland Revenue if requested and change their systems to pay you gross. This is obviously different to most accounts and therefore many banks don't offer this, especially as there is zero benefit to them.

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Wrong! Like I said, speak to the manager of your Barclays Bank. Barclays do pay interest gross to those who have completed R85. You can even pick up form R85 from your Barclays branch or download it from the Barclays website: http://barclays.metafaq.com/template...UU3R6NMM9AN0AA

Gina

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Ok,some confusion. The R85 form only applies if you are resident in the UK and qualify to receive interest without tax deductions.

If you live overseas and have a UK bank account and want to receive gross interest you need to fill in the R105 - the inland revenue sent this to me recently but Barclays does not accept this.

The OP needs to complete a form R105 if they live in Oz.

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

The OP has given Abbey National a UK address. Therefore they need to use form R85.

You also wrote in post #5 that Barclays don't accept form R85 (which is incorrect). I am not a mind-reader and therefore unable to discern that when you say R85 you mean R105 ;).

Gina

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Hi - Thanks for the info re the R85 form but this was all done way back when in the UK.

We have transferred large amounts of monies with no problems but this was when we were in the UK so if there had been any queries etc it would have been easy to deal with anyway.

Just want to check if any of you guys had no problems with notifying the banks (particularly the Abbey) of a change of address overseas and no problems encountered transferring/moving large amounts of money when using an internet based account.

If not, we will just leave as is and continue to use our brother's address.

Many thanks
Nina

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

No problems re the change of address to Australia though it means you cannot use the R85 form as you would be non residents.

Lots of problems with our internet bank account due to the limits that most banks impose when moving funds via the internet. Or maybe we were unlucky with Barclays.

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

I wrote to Abbey and told them my Australian address and they had no problems with it.

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Hi,

Not sure if this will help but here goes anyway. We have this morning been to Abbey regarding leaving money from house sale. Looking at e-saver account, interest rate okay. However the biggest problem was getting to the money. We where advised if we had e-saver account we would have to transfer the money into a saving account (Abbey) and then write a cheque out in Oz and present. Advisor told us that you can't transfer money via e-savers A/c to Australian bank account??? Cheque would be in pound sterling and would attract fees @ charges. The cheque could take 6 weeks to clear because of security checks for first transaction. Advisor also told us that interest rates in UK could drop so this would affect our e-saver interest. If money wasn't left in account for 12months would also lose and the best interest rates are only valid for 1 year. He advised us that it would be better for us to transfer bulk of our money to Australia. Leaving some here in case exchange rates went up, but who knows when this will be. We are probably going to take bulk of the money with us and try and get a good rate in Oz. What are the rates in Oz like at the moment??? As for address we where told we are fine to keep an account in this country. You can then declare your interest from your UK a/c when doing tax return in Oz. Hope this helps, just what we have been told from branch in Lancaster. GOOD LUCK..

Re: Abbey Bank - Advising Now in Australia???
 

Hi - Many thanks. No problems with moving the money from the Esaver account as it will be paid to OzForex into their UK account (we've done this before we left with absolutely no trouble (large amount) and it has been set up as a payment to their Barclays account).

The interest rates here are around 8.15% as a rough guide. Best to keep an eye on the exchange rates (as if you aren't already!) as the news out here today is that the banks are starting to feel the credit crunch and their share values have also been significantly affected.

Once again, many thanks on the Abbey info. Will get into gear and try and get this and the HRMC sorted out - as well as tax returns here - all good fun!!

Good luck with your move - where are you moving to?