wanderingwhite

Myself and the wife have a combined unsecured debt of £45,000. Once we sell our house we are looking to emigrate to Aus. and the house sale should knock of around £20,000 of our debt.

We would intend to continue paying the remainder of debt under the current terms, I.e until they are paid off.

Are there any restrictions over entry to Aus with debt?

Thanks in advance.

lawlaw

Hi

No there are no restrictions with taking debt with you, my hubbie will still have a little bit left on a student loan which will will pay from over there too. Bear in mind though that with the exchange rate you will have to work harder to pay it off from aus.

suebrennan

I would try and pay off as much as you can before you go anywhere. Moving abroad and setting youselves up somewhere new costs money as does applying for visas etc. Bear in mind that paying off sterling debts in Aussie dollars will take a lot longer. It would also be nice/ideal to start a new life with some cash in the bank as opposed to being saddled with debts. Best of luck.

mercador

You'd have to be mad to try and pay off a sterling debt while earning Aus$. Are you sure you're not planning to do a runner?

ElshaUK

I will be going back to Australia with a credit card debt. It will be in the region of about £5'000-£7'000. I am paying off a loan at the moment which will be paid by next Sept. I figure that £5k+ is not too much even, with the exchange rate.

If I can get a job quickly then I'll apply for an Aussie loan to pay off the credit card and that way I am not 'farting' about with exchange rates etc. I do have an aussie credit card (nothing owed on that one) So, maybe the banks will give me a loan quite easily. Who knows.

Susan

Centurion

The short answer to your question is no - you dont have to declare any debt, Australia is not interested in the slightest what you owe in the UK or what your credit rating is as you start here from scratch again.

Pollyana

Its perfectly possible to emigrate with debt, equally possible to pay it off from here, if you can't clear it first. It is tougher to pay when earning $$ but can certainly be done. Use someone like www.tranzfers.com to move money to the UK each month, and then online banking with a UK account to pay the bills.

68MEVY

We've got about GBP12000 debt. We've taken a 6 mth payment holiday and then will continue to pay it off. We've looked into getting a mortgage and they prefer you to be debt free so they will consolidaate you're English debt on top of your mortgage if you want them too.
Marie

Pollyana

But if you tell them about your English debt it will reduce the amount they will lend you.

68MEVY

A couple of banks we've spoken to say that if we're prepared to consolidate the debt with the mortgage, they won't take it into account when we're applying for the mortgage.
St George was one of these banks, can't remember the others but have got them written down somewhere.

CreditCardKing

I would contact your creditors and inform them that you are emigrating, they will likely take the 20,000 from your home sale to clear your whole 45,000 debt. The creditor would rather take 20k rather than risk getting nothing. This will give you a fresh start, paying off a 25k debt from OZ would be very hard.